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We frequently present quick analyses of data on this blog (and look at those done by others). As a close follower of the education debate, I often get the sense that people are hungry for high-quality information on a variety of different topics, but searching for these data can be daunting, which probably deters many people from trying. So, while I'm sure that many others have compiled lists of data resources relevant to education, I figured I would do the same, with a focus on more user-friendly sources. But first, I would be remiss if I didn't caution you to use these data carefully. Almost all of the resources below have instructions or FAQ's, most non-technical. Read them. Remember that improper or misleading presentation of data is one of the most counterproductive features of today's education debates, and it occurs to the detriment of all. That said, here are a few key resources for education and other related quantitative data. It is far from exhaustive, so feel free to leave comments and suggestions if you think I missed anything important.

woke up yesterday morning to read Norm Scott's post on Education Notes Online about a new study of the effects of charter schools on achievement in New York City.  The study, by economists Caroline Hoxby and Sonali Murarka, finds a charter school effect of .09 standard deviations per year of treatment in math and .04 standard deviations per year in reading.  I haven't read the study closely yet, but I was struck by Norm's headline:  "Study Shows NO Improvement in NYC Charters Over Public Schools."  The effects that Hoxby and Murarka report are statistically significant, which means that we can reject the claim that they are zero.  But are they big?  That's a surprisingly complicated question. I'm going to argue that the answer hinges on "compared to what?"

If the past decade was defined by a remarkable expansion of charter schools in Chicago, the next 10 years might ultimately be about accountability. The state last week released detailed performance data for city charter schools for the first time, revealing that many schools from even the most prominent charter networks struggle to close the achievement gap for low-income students.

The departure of half the core teaching staff at an elite Upper West Side elementary school has roiled parents who worry test prep is destroying the school's creative spirit. In July, close to half of the parents at the Special Music School signed a letter decrying the "apparent shift in school culture" and the new principal's leadership.  "This is not the same place it was three years ago," said a 3rd-grade parent, who like most interviewed, asked to remain anonymous for fear of negative repercussions for their children. "There's a lot of talk about data and test prep, and I didn't used to hear that." The school, which until recently was a program at PS 199, provides an almost private-school like experience for musically gifted students who must audition in kindergarten and again in 5th grade for middle school.

Yesterday, the US Department of Education released a new report addressing how districts qualified for Title I funds (higher poverty districts) often allocate resources across their schools inequitably, arguing that requirements for receiving Title I funds should be strengthened. The report is here: http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/title-i/school-level-expenditures/school-level-expenditures.pdf Related resources here: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd/ppss/reports.html#comparability-state-local-expenditures It is certainly problematic that many public school districts have far from predictable, far from logical and far from equitable formulas for distributing resources across their schools. This is a problem which should be addressed. And improving comparability provisions for receipt of Title I funding is an appropriate step to take in this regard. However, it is critically important to understand that improving within district comparability of resources across schools is only a very small piece of a much larger equity puzzle. It's a drop in the bucket. Perhaps an important drop, but not one that will even come close to resolving the major equity issues that plague public education systems today.

Last Monday, a broad-based coalition of Providence community groups sent a letter to Governor Chafee announcing their opposition to the implantation of a network of Achievement First Mayoral Academies in Providence. It's a pretty long letter, but it's effectively summed upin the last paragraph, which reads: "Our repudiation of Achievement First is not an affirmation of the status quo nor is it a condemnation of all charter schools. The persistent achievement gaps that exist in our schools must be addressed, but no organization or methodology should claim to close those gaps while posting mixed academic results and undermining democratic processes. We implore your help in creating education policies, developed in conjunction with parents, teachers, students, and other local stakeholders, that help all young people enrolled in our public schools."

Long governed largely by inertia and school convention, teacher evaluation has recently become a focal point of education reform. Many states, under prodding from the federal Race to the Top program, have begun to implement new, comprehensive evaluation systems that incorporate student test-score data and more rigorous observation protocols. School systems are also working to tie evaluation results more closely to teachers' tenure status and professional advancement.

President Obama's remarks on inequality, stoking populist anger at "the rich," suggest that the theme for his reelection bid will be not hope and change but focus on reducing class disparity with government help. But this effort isn't limited to economics; it is playing out in our nation's schools as well. The issue is whether federal education efforts will compromise opportunities for our highest-achieving students. One might assume that a president determined to "win the future" would make a priority of ensuring that our ablest kids have the chance to excel.

As 2011 draws to a close, we can confidently declare that one of the biggest debates over education is - mercifully - resolved. We may not have addressed all the huge challenges facing our schools, but we finally have empirical data ruling out apocryphal theories and exposing the fundamental problem.

After reading the New York times op-ed on school choice in DC, I asked some folks close to what's happening in education there for their thoughts. Mary Levy sent me what is written below and (with her permission), I decided to use it as a guest post. Mary Levy has analyzed DC Public School staffing, budget and expenditures, and monitored the progress of education reform for thirty years. She is a major source for fiscal, statistical and general information on DCPS for the media, government officials and non-profit, business and civic groups. She directed the Public Education Reform Project at the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs for 19 years, during which she played a major role in developing the District of Columbia's school funding systems, wrote numerous reports on DCPS, and participated in every major reform planning initiative. Previously, in private practice with Rauh, Lichtman, Levy & Turner, she did civil litigation in civil rights, labor law, and school finance, including major litigations in New York  and Maryland.

A company run by a former city schools boss is in line for a nearly $10 million no-bid contract to track student test scores - and critics are giving the move a big fat "F." City Controller John Liu slammed the Education Department's move to hand the contract to ex- Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's Wireless Generation company. The firm is an affiliate of News Corp., which is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Klein is a close confidant. Klein's company is getting the contract under a little-used legal maneuver.

I work at one of the thirty-three PLA schools Mayor Bloomberg has publicly stated that he wants to close.  As part of this plan, he is also seeking to replace up to 50% of the teachers.  I have worked in the same school for the past nine years.  I can dismiss the sensationalistic claim from Mayor Bloomberg that 50% of teachers are ineffective, because it is simply not true.  Likewise, when I hear defenders of educators claim that all teachers do great work, I know this is not correct either.  The answer lies somewhere in between-in this case, much closer to the defenders of teachers. 

Consider the constant chatter that the U.S. is declining economically, socially, and globally and that schools must be drafted to stop that decline. The low scores of U.S. students on international tests is Exhibit 1. Even without getting into the shortcomings of the tests used to rank nations internationally and measure students domestically, the untoward consequences of raising the stakes on state test scores (e.g., narrowed curriculum, withholding diplomas, closing schools) are evident today. Look around to see if the U.S.'s global economic position has improved. It has not after a decade of NCLB and a burst housing bubble. But betting that a federal law would miraculously spur economic growth and a larger chunk of foreign markets is not necessarily dumb. It is a national ideological tic that American policy elites have had in "educationalizing" social, economic, and political problems (Labaree Paper-Ed_Theory_11-08 ). Hurtful habitual behavior even on a national level is, like individuals continually smoking, understandable only if we see the behavior as addictive.

New Jersey education officials had a dilemma last summer: Following the approval of a record number of charter schools, questions were flying about how closely the applications had been screened. With more prospective charters lining up, acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf, a former charter executive, bought in help - a move that proved controversial. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, a Chicago nonprofit, had offered to fly in 14 consultants to lead Department of Education staff in the next approval round, looking toward overhauling the entire process. What was particularly enticing was that the association could arrange funding through the Newark Charter School Fund, a nonprofit backed by the same philanthropies that support the association, including the Walton Family Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

What are we doing? The Philadelphia schools just laid off another 1,400 people, on top of more than 1,800 last year. The Chester-Upland schools are flat broke. Teachers there are working for free right to keep classrooms open. Repeat, for free. And the Catholic school system announced closings of nearly 50 schools in the Philadelphia region.  What in the world are we doing?

California calls its "Academic Performance Index" (API) the "cornerstone" of its accountability system. The API is calculated as a weighted average of the proportions of students meeting proficiency cutoffs on the state exams. It is a high-stakes measure. "Growth" in schools' API scores determines whether they meet federal AYP requirements, and it is also important in the state's own accountability regime. In addition, toward the middle of last month, the California Charter Schools Association called for the closing of ten charter schools based in part on their (three-year) API "growth" rates.

Gov. Bobby Jindal and his allies on education reform are considering an unprecedented, statewide expansion of private school vouchers and steps to more closely link teachers' job security with performance, according to two officials who have consulted with the governor's office on proposals for this year's session at the Louisiana Legislature.

In one of his most dramatic moves since taking office, Gov. Cuomo will use the budget he makes public tomorrow to impose union-hated teacher evaluation systems on 700 school districts throughout the state, The Post has learned. The popular governor will do so by including language in the budget that ties receipt of 4 percent state aid increases promised to the districts in last year's budget - some $800 million - to adoption of the teacher-evaluation system developed by the state Education Department, which has been blocked from city schools by a teachers-union lawsuit, a source close to the situation said. All the systems, including the New York City schools, will have until Dec. 31 of this year to adopt the teacher-evaluation systems or lose the money, the source said.

"When we sit down with the UFT, there are two groups in the room: the UFT and our school children," Mayor Bloomberg said, adding that the latter group is "who we work for…We have an obligation to stand up for their lives, their futures." He called for merit pay, for more a more stringent teacher evaluation system, more (union-free) charter schools. "It's a legacy thing. Remember, 'I am the education mayor.' Two years left and [test] scores have been flat the whole time. Closing schools has not really worked out. We have the warehousing of students," said Mr. Mulgrew. "Those are problematic, so I'm sure he's worried about his legacy."

My four children have all attended public schools in our middle-class suburban district. When my oldest was in fourth grade, in 1998, he took the state tests, and I was not even aware of it. Later, he said the tests were kind of fun; he got to miss his regular classes. Six years later, in 2004, our daughter was in fourth grade. Long before the state tests, a letter came home. Prep classes were being offered before and after school. While the sessions were not mandatory, students were strongly urged to attend. Eventually the results were printed in our local newspaper. The news was grim; the nearby districts, in wealthier towns, had creamed us. The following year, our middle school added a mandatory course to prep for the state English test. That 1998/2004 divide - what happened in the interim was the 2002 No Child Left Behind law - should be kept in mind when analyzing a new, widely publicized study that closely tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years to determine whether teachers who helped raise children's test scores have a lasting effect on their lives. The researchers conclude that having such a teacher improved students' odds of going to a good college, the quality of the neighborhoods where they lived and their lifetime earnings.