Holding educators more accountable for the academic achievement of their students has been a central feature of recent education reforms. In several prominent instances, accountability schemes have set pecuniary performance targets that condition on prior scores as a means of controlling for student heterogeneity. Yet doing so introduces a potential dynamic distortion in incentives: teachers may be less responsive to the reform today in an effort to avoid more onerous targets in future — an instance of the so-called `ratchet effect.' The main chapters of this thesis consider possible dynamic distortions from three distinct but related vantage points. Chapter 2 builds a theoretical foundation for understanding the origin of ratchet effects in an educational context. Given an environment where school-level targets depend on student prior scores, I show that such dynamic gaming behaviour depends crucially on variation in the grade horizon of students, with teachers distorting their effort less when their decision affects fewer future scores within the same school. Chapter 3 analyzes the ratchet effect from an empirical perspective. Making use of rich educational panel data from North Carolina, I exploit variation in the grade span of schools to identify ratchet effects, finding compelling evidence of dynamic distortions using a difference-in-differences approach. I then directly estimate the structural parameters of the corresponding model, allowing for complementarities in production between teacher effort and student ability. Using these estimates, the grade five score in K-5 schools would be about 1.25 standard deviations lower under a counterfactual setting without any accountability scheme and 4.6% of a standard deviation higher if ratchet effects were eliminated via a prescribed reduction in each school's incentive target. Chapter 4 explores a potentially important class of mechanisms through which the identified dynamic effects might arise. In particular, school principals may re-allocate teachers across classrooms differentially by grade. By examining the yearly change in teacher assignments to tested subjects, I find evidence that principals re-sort higher quality teachers to higher grades and focus more costly re-sorting on lower grades in response to the reform, which is consistent with the overarching dynamic objective and results of the prior chapter.

Holding educators more accountable for the academic achievement of their students has been a central feature of recent education reforms. In several prominent instances, accountability schemes have set pecuniary performance targets that condition on prior scores as a means of controlling for student heterogeneity. Yet doing so introduces a potential dynamic distortion in incentives: teachers may be less responsive to the reform today in an effort to avoid more onerous targets in future — an instance of the so-called `ratchet effect.' The main chapters of this thesis consider possible dynamic distortions from three distinct but related vantage points. Chapter 2 builds a theoretical foundation for understanding the origin of ratchet effects in an educational context. Given an environment where school-level targets depend on student prior scores, I show that such dynamic gaming behaviour depends crucially on variation in the grade horizon of students, with teachers distorting their effort less when their decision affects fewer future scores within the same school. Chapter 3 analyzes the ratchet effect from an empirical perspective. Making use of rich educational panel data from North Carolina, I exploit variation in the grade span of schools to identify ratchet effects, finding compelling evidence of dynamic distortions using a difference-in-differences approach. I then directly estimate the structural parameters of the corresponding model, allowing for complementarities in production between teacher effort and student ability. Using these estimates, the grade five score in K-5 schools would be about 1.25 standard deviations lower under a counterfactual setting without any accountability scheme and 4.6% of a standard deviation higher if ratchet effects were eliminated via a prescribed reduction in each school's incentive target. Chapter 4 explores a potentially important class of mechanisms through which the identified dynamic effects might arise. In particular, school principals may re-allocate teachers across classrooms differentially by grade. By examining the yearly change in teacher assignments to tested subjects, I find evidence that principals re-sort higher quality teachers to higher grades and focus more costly re-sorting on lower grades in response to the reform, which is consistent with the overarching dynamic objective and results of the prior chapter.

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The purpose of this study was to explore and analyze which fifth-grade teacher inputs were the most important predictors of future outcomes of eighth-grade math students. This quantitative study looked at mathematical achievement through the lens of an education production function. The three inputs that were analyzed were fifth-grade teachers’ background; perception of professional development; and instructional practices and the relationship of those practices to achievement in eighth-grade math. In order to find the relationship between the above variables and student achievement, descriptive statistics, multiple correlations, and multi-variable regression analysis were conducted to examine which predictors had a stronger relationship between eighth-grade math outcomes than others. Taken as a whole, fifth-grade teacher math inputs in this study seemed to explain a small part of the variance regarding eighth-grade math achievement. As a whole, the more frequently students wrote and spoke about math in fifth grade as well as used math tools effectively, the better the outcome in eighth grade.

Esta pesquisa toma como objeto de investigação a formação inicial de professores em sua relação com a sociedade midiática atual, que exige novas habilidades dos professores para o trabalho com crianças nascidas e criadas na era tecnológica, onde a escola não é mais o único espaço de aprendizagem e socialização. Por considerar que a sociedade atual passa por transformações constantes e aceleradas, que impactam não somente a tecnologia, mas também a forma de se produzir cultura e se relacionar socialmente, tem-se como pressuposto que a escola, os professores e os alunos vem sendo impactados por estas transformações, o que coloca novas dificuldades para o processo de ensino e aprendizagem.A pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a formação de professores em sua relação com as questões comunicacionais midiáticas e quanto ao preparo para um trabalho com mídias nas escolas. Em sua dimensão empírica, de base qualitativa, analisou os quadros curriculares de seis cursos de Pedagogia da cidade de Santos, na interface entre educação e comunicação. Também foram analisados questionários aplicados a professores de oito escolas de ensino fundamental I da rede pública municipal de Santos, que avaliaram suas percepções a respeito de suas práticas pedagógicas, em especial no que tange ao trabalho com novas mídias em suas aulas. Os resultados contribuíram para sustentar a tese apresentada sobre a necessidade de se reorientar a formação inicial de professores, em decorrência de novas demandas sociais, educacionais e culturais, uma vez que se têm cursos de formação que não estão preparando os futuros professores para um trabalho com alunos que vivem em sociedades midiáticas, com novas formas de aprendizagem e socialização. As conclusões apontam na direção de que a escola e os professores precisam se assumir como produtores sociais de comunicação, estreitando o diálogo entre as áreas de comunicação e educação. / This research has the objective of investigating the initial education of professors in relation to today´s mediatic society that demands new skills from them for the work with kids born and raised in this era of technology, where school is no longer the only place for learning and socializing. For considering that today´s society is undergoing constant and quick transformation, that impact not only technology, but also the way of producing culture and social relations, presupposes that the school, teachers and students are being impacted by these transformations, which brings new challenges for the process of teaching and learning. The research brings to analysis the formation of teachers in relation to the mediatic communication questions and the preparation of work with media in the schools. In its empirical dimension, qualitative base, it´s been analyzed the curriculum of six Pedagogical courses in the city of Santos, in the interface between education and communication. It has also been analyzed the questionnaires applied to teachers in eight pre and junior high schools from the public system that evaluated their perceptions regarding their pedagogical practices, in special to the work with new media in their classrooms. The results contributed to sustain the present thesis about the need to reorient the initial education of professors, in regards to the new social, educational and cultural demands, once there are courses that are not preparing future professors to work with students who live in mediatic societies, with new ways of learning and socializing. The conclusions point to the direction in which schools and professors need to assume themselves as social communication producers, narrowing the dialog between the communication and education areas.

O objetivo desse trabalho é analisar a relação entre o desempenho escolar e os salários dos jovens brasileiros. Examinamos se a qualidade do ensino, mensurada pelas notas obtidas por uma geração nos exames de proficiência realizados pelo Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira, o INEP, em seu Estado ao término do ensino médio, afeta os salários a serem recebidos por esta geração quando ela estiver no mercado de trabalho, cinco e seis anos depois, respectivamente com dados do Censo Demográfico de 2000 e da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, a PNAD, de 2001. A partir de um modelo de pseudo-painel, corrigimos os problemas de viés de seleção gerados pelas migrações e pelo alto nível educacional da amostra selecionada, através do modelo de Roy (1951) aplicado em Dahl (2001). Os determinantes da proficiência escolar, tais como “background" familiar, a infra-estrutura escolar e o perfil de docentes e diretores também foram analisados. A partir da estimação do modelo em dois estágios, os resultados do primeiro estágio mostram que o desempenho dos alunos em exames de proficiência é positivamente relacionado aos investimentos em educação, como melhor remuneração a professores e diretores, critérios mais rigorosos de seleção desses profissionais, assim como investimentos em infra-estrutura, que melhoram a qualidade da escola. Isso aponta para a existência de uma relação entre os recursos destinados à educação e a qualidade da mesma no Brasil. Adicionalmente, os resultados do segundo estágio do modelo mostram que as notas obtidas por uma geração nos testes de proficiência são significantes para explicar os salários futuros da mesma. Dessa forma o estudo confirma a importância de políticas públicas que invistam na qualidade da escola ao invés de políticas destinadas apenas a aumentar os anos de estudo da população. / The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between the school performance and the wages of young Brazilians workers. We examine if school quality, measured by test scores of a generation in SAEB at the end of high school, affect the earnings of this generation when they enter the labor force, five and six years later, with sample of Censo (2000) and PNAD (2001). We use a pseudo-panel model to correct the problems of selection bias, created by migrations and by the high education level of the selected sample, through a Roy model (1951) applied in Dahl (2001). The determinants of school performance, like familiar background, school structure, teacher and director profiles also were analyzed. We conclude that school characteristics are responsible for a good performance of students in tests scores, and that the school performance explains the differences of the earnings of young Brazilians workers.

Esta pesquisa toma como objeto de investigação a formação inicial de professores em sua relação com a sociedade midiática atual, que exige novas habilidades dos professores para o trabalho com crianças nascidas e criadas na era tecnológica, onde a escola não é mais o único espaço de aprendizagem e socialização. Por considerar que a sociedade atual passa por transformações constantes e aceleradas, que impactam não somente a tecnologia, mas também a forma de se produzir cultura e se relacionar socialmente, tem-se como pressuposto que a escola, os professores e os alunos vem sendo impactados por estas transformações, o que coloca novas dificuldades para o processo de ensino e aprendizagem.A pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a formação de professores em sua relação com as questões comunicacionais midiáticas e quanto ao preparo para um trabalho com mídias nas escolas. Em sua dimensão empírica, de base qualitativa, analisou os quadros curriculares de seis cursos de Pedagogia da cidade de Santos, na interface entre educação e comunicação. Também foram analisados questionários aplicados a professores de oito escolas de ensino fundamental I da rede pública municipal de Santos, que avaliaram suas percepções a respeito de suas práticas pedagógicas, em especial no que tange ao trabalho com novas mídias em suas aulas. Os resultados contribuíram para sustentar a tese apresentada sobre a necessidade de se reorientar a formação inicial de professores, em decorrência de novas demandas sociais, educacionais e culturais, uma vez que se têm cursos de formação que não estão preparando os futuros professores para um trabalho com alunos que vivem em sociedades midiáticas, com novas formas de aprendizagem e socialização. As conclusões apontam na direção de que a escola e os professores precisam se assumir como produtores sociais de comunicação, estreitando o diálogo entre as áreas de comunicação e educação. / This research has the objective of investigating the initial education of professors in relation to today´s mediatic society that demands new skills from them for the work with kids born and raised in this era of technology, where school is no longer the only place for learning and socializing. For considering that today´s society is undergoing constant and quick transformation, that impact not only technology, but also the way of producing culture and social relations, presupposes that the school, teachers and students are being impacted by these transformations, which brings new challenges for the process of teaching and learning. The research brings to analysis the formation of teachers in relation to the mediatic communication questions and the preparation of work with media in the schools. In its empirical dimension, qualitative base, it´s been analyzed the curriculum of six Pedagogical courses in the city of Santos, in the interface between education and communication. It has also been analyzed the questionnaires applied to teachers in eight pre and junior high schools from the public system that evaluated their perceptions regarding their pedagogical practices, in special to the work with new media in their classrooms. The results contributed to sustain the present thesis about the need to reorient the initial education of professors, in regards to the new social, educational and cultural demands, once there are courses that are not preparing future professors to work with students who live in mediatic societies, with new ways of learning and socializing. The conclusions point to the direction in which schools and professors need to assume themselves as social communication producers, narrowing the dialog between the communication and education areas.

O objetivo desse trabalho é analisar a relação entre o desempenho escolar e os salários dos jovens brasileiros. Examinamos se a qualidade do ensino, mensurada pelas notas obtidas por uma geração nos exames de proficiência realizados pelo Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Anísio Teixeira, o INEP, em seu Estado ao término do ensino médio, afeta os salários a serem recebidos por esta geração quando ela estiver no mercado de trabalho, cinco e seis anos depois, respectivamente com dados do Censo Demográfico de 2000 e da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios, a PNAD, de 2001. A partir de um modelo de pseudo-painel, corrigimos os problemas de viés de seleção gerados pelas migrações e pelo alto nível educacional da amostra selecionada, através do modelo de Roy (1951) aplicado em Dahl (2001). Os determinantes da proficiência escolar, tais como “background” familiar, a infra-estrutura escolar e o perfil de docentes e diretores também foram analisados. A partir da estimação do modelo em dois estágios, os resultados do primeiro estágio mostram que o desempenho dos alunos em exames de proficiência é positivamente relacionado aos investimentos em educação, como melhor remuneração a professores e diretores, critérios mais rigorosos de seleção desses profissionais, assim como investimentos em infra-estrutura, que melhoram a qualidade da escola. Isso aponta para a existência de uma relação entre os recursos destinados à educação e a qualidade da mesma no Brasil. Adicionalmente, os resultados do segundo estágio do modelo mostram que as notas obtidas por uma geração nos testes de proficiência são significantes para explicar os salários futuros da mesma. Dessa forma o estudo confirma a importância de políticas públicas que invistam na qualidade da escola ao invés de políticas destinadas apenas a aumentar os anos de estudo da população. / The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between the school performance and the wages of young Brazilians workers. We examine if school quality, measured by test scores of a generation in SAEB at the end of high school, affect the earnings of this generation when they enter the labor force, five and six years later, with sample of Censo (2000) and PNAD (2001). We use a pseudo-panel model to correct the problems of selection bias, created by migrations and by the high education level of the selected sample, through a Roy model (1951) applied in Dahl (2001). The determinants of school performance, like familiar background, school structure, teacher and director profiles also were analyzed. We conclude that school characteristics are responsible for a good performance of students in tests scores, and that the school performance explains the differences of the earnings of young Brazilians workers.

Thesis (PhD (Education Policy Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Information is a necessary resource, produced by information systems and is a key building block to the management and decision-making in any organisation. The National Department of Education’s guidelines to establish Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) in provincial departments is a recognition that proper management, planning and evaluation are contingent on quality data, data that is complete, relevant, accurate, timely and accessible. The lack of quality data and the lack of integration with other information systems hamstring the effective use of EMIS. This study addresses these limitations in three basic objectives: a) developing an information systems development model, b) applying the model in a real-life context of the development of the Western Cape EMIS, and c) applying quantitative methods on integrated data sets derived from the EMIS in the Western Cape and other information systems. The study culminates in the development of a four-phase process model for developing and using EMIS in an integrative manner that would provide a more comprehensive picture for policy and decision-making. It outlines the establishment of an information systems development (ISD) model that integrates innovative emerging trends, such as improvisation, bricolage and sensemaking, in designing and implementing information systems. These approaches postulate that beyond the numbers and quantifiable world there is a complex reality that traditional approaches do not always capture. These include, amongst other things, the atmosphere, culture and structure of an organization, together with the behaviour, emotions, knowledge and experiences of all the people who in one way or another interact with the information system. The research presents an empirical application of this developed ISD model in education management information system (EMIS) and underscores the role of information systems in everyday practice. This work practice (Practice-in-Action) approach is used to describe how the day-to-day actions and practical experiences of role players contribute to the design, development, implementation, testing, maintenance and improvement of the EMIS and is used as a lens for understanding ISD. The study further uses quantitative methods, namely education production function and learner flow-through models, to illustrate how the process of knowledge discovery in large data sets in EMIS could be facilitated. The education production function aims to identify those variables that could have a significant influence on the achievement of students in the matriculation examination. The learner flow-through models attempt to measure the effect of learner dropout and repetition on internal efficiency of the education system. Data analysis was facilitated through integration of data sets from various sources, and in turn illustrates the important role of bricolage in ISD. Through this analysis, the role of information systems of this nature to make sense of reality was highlighted. Policy making then can build on the findings from such data analyses to investigate in greater depth any trends or emerging problems, going beyond only the quantitative and macro level analysis by studies at the qualitative and micro levels.