Recent Publications by John Sludden
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An Analysis of Pennsylvania’s Cyber Charter Schools
Pennsylvania’s first charter school opened in 1998, enrolling 44 full-time students. The sector has since grown to 16 schools enrolling 35,000 students from all but one school district in the Commonwealth. This PACER Issue Brief…
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Early Childhood Education in Pennsylvania
Early childhood education has emerged as a priority for state and national policymakers, even in the face of declining education budgets elsewhere. This PACER brief examines the research and policy base surrounding early childhood education.
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Lessons from Multiple Measures Reforms across Six Two-Year Colleges in Three States: Phase 2 Report
This report is a companion to Research for Action’s (RFA’s) earlier examination of the policy context in three states—California, North Carolina, and Wisconsin—where Multiple Measures reforms are underway in different forms. In this document, we…
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Revisiting Cyber Charter School Performance
RFA’s updated cyber charter school analysis shows that cybers continue to lag far behind both traditional public and charter schools on the state’s performance measure, and average cyber performance trails behind the average performance of…
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The Potential Effects of Opting Out of State Tests in Pennsylvania
Parents across the country have expressed frustration with standardized tests. This policy brief examines the degree to which student opt-outs might influence Pennsylvania’s new school rating system, the School Performance Profile (SPP), which relies heavily…
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PA Keystone Exams: Analysis of 2013-14 Publicly-Available Data
Pennsylvania’s two-decade experience with standards-based education reform has been marked by an increasing reliance on test-based accountability. This research brief provides education stakeholders with accurate, comprehensive analysis to inform the growing debate about Keystone Exams.
Publication
Pennsylvania’s School Performance Profile: Not the Sum of its Parts
Test-based accountability has been a primary feature of public school policy since 2001, when the No Child Left Behind Act required states to adopt annual assessment programs, identify sanctions for schools that did not meet…