National Education Policy Center
Broken up into three sections – Effects size, monetary benefits and costs – the report analyzes three education reform strategies: starting schools later in the morning, favoring K-8 grade configuration instead of a separate middle school, and increasing teacher specialization by grade and subject.
The report generally concludes that the mentioned reforms have the potential to increase student achievement at a comparatively low cost, although there will be slight differences among districts.
For the first two strategies, the study performs a simple cost-benefit analysis with every reform. The idea to start schools later in the day produced a ratio of $9 in benefits to $1 of real cost. Converting schools to K-8 configurations produced a ratio between $40 and $200 to $1 real cost.
The information used for this analysis is drawn from three previous reports on attempts at these reforms in Florida, New York and North Carolina.
To read a free version of this study, please click here.
