OMB Generic Template - Magnets and School Turnarounds

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 1880-0542)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION

Magnets and School Turnarounds

PURPOSE

The purpose of the data collection interview is to understand how schools that have received funds from the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) in fiscal year 2010 successfully aligned their magnet and school turnaround plans. Through case studies of four schools in four districts, this project will explore the principles and strategies used both to establish successful magnet schools and to achieve a successful school turnaround, which are interlinked. Research consistently indicates that a student’s peer group is by far the most important within-school factor in determining a child’s academic success.¹ This is particularly true for low-income students and students from underrepresented minority groups². Since one of the central goals of federally funded magnet schools is to reduce minority group isolation, a successful magnet program is well-positioned to turnaround a school academically. Critically, a successful magnet program means that the school is both attracting a diverse group of students and equitably serving all students within it.

In addition to analyzing 2010 MSAP grant applications and publicly available enrollment and achievement data, members of the Civil Rights Project (CRP) research team will conduct site visits, surveys and interviews with school personnel of the four selected schools. The results of the research will provide new knowledge about the ways in which federally funded magnet schools are navigating integration and turnaround strategies, which could help strengthen the design and replication of successful magnets going forward.

The Magnets and School Turnaround Study data collection will include surveys, interviews, and site visits with personnel from four selected schools that participated in the 2010 MSAP cohort. The 20-minute MSAP School Turnaround Survey for Administrators will be administered to a total of 16 school principals and assistant principals and the 20-minute MSAP School Turnaround Survey for Teachers will be administered to a total of 164 teachers. In addition, researchers will conduct 2-day site visits at each of the four schools. Each site visit will include individual 30-minute interviews with the four school administrators who completed the survey; two 30-minute focus group discussions with seven teachers, one 30-minute focus group discussion with five parents, and four unstructured holistic observations that examine interactions during class, lunchtime, recess, and one extracurricular activity to document important elements and characteristics of a magnet school turnaround.³ Data will be collected by ED-OII-13-C-0073 subcontractor—University of California Los Angeles, Civil Rights Project (CRP). The attached instruments and surveys will be completed one time within the 3-year MSAP grant cycle.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS

Magnet school principals and assistant principals are essential to magnet and school turnaround success as they lead, guide and implement programmatic, academic and climate shifts. Magnet school teachers, similarly, are critical components of magnet and school turnaround success as they work to incorporate and address major shifts in their classrooms. Finally, magnet school parents are well-positioned to observe and provide feedback on external perceptions of magnet and turnaround processes. Understanding the perspectives of each of these groups on how successfully magnet school and turnaround processes were aligned will help MSAP tailor technical assistance products and services to grantees as well as to the larger magnet school community.

See the attached Magnets and School Turnarounds surveys and interview and focus group protocols

TYPE OF COLLECTION (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [X] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Groups [X] Other Interview & Observations

CERTIFICATION

I certify the following to be true.

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:________________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [X] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time per respondent in minutes	Total participation per respondent category in minutes	Burden Hours
Survey: School Administrators	16	20	320	5
Survey: Teachers	164	20	3280	55
Interview: School Administrators	16	30	480	8
Focus Groups: Teachers	56	30	1680	28
Focus Groups: Parents	20	30	600	10
Totals	272	130	6360	106

FEDERAL COST

The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is approximately _$97,800. This is a one-time cost under ED-OII-13-C-0073. This is the Part 2 of a study on minority group isolation and school turnaround. Part 1 - Defining Minority Group Isolation in Federally Funded Magnet Schools was recently approved under OMB control number 1880-0542.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [X] Yes [] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

Additional Information

The four schools were selected through an analysis of enrollment by race from 2009-2014, student achievement by race from 2009-2014, and a careful review of 2010 MSAP cohort grant applications. We first reviewed district-level enrollment trends from 2009-2014 for evidence that MSAP-funded schools were reducing minority group isolation (e.g., were attracting growing shares of white and/or Asian students). We then examined grant applications of 2010 MSAP cohort, which had a school turnaround priority for descriptions of school turnaround status. Based on evidence of steadily increasing racial diversity and 2010 magnet school turnaround status, we created a list of 22 possible schools. For those 22 schools, we examined math and reading achievement data, as well as high school graduation rates where applicable. Finally, for those 22 schools, we paired the achievement data with school-level enrollment data to see whether the possible sites were raising achievement and/or narrowing achievement gaps and reducing minority group isolation. We sought variation across region of the country; type of district(s) (central city, countywide, consortium of districts), magnet theme and grade-level. A team of five researchers independently reviewed all the data, offered possibilities for site selection and came to consensus.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[X] Web-based or other forms of Social Media (Please see attached instrument)

[ ] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X ] Yes [ ] No

Site visit data collection will be conducted by Civil Rights Project researchers. Four researchers working in teams of two will visit each site. No recording device will be used.

1James S. Coleman, Equality of Educational Opportunity Study (EEOS) (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1966); Geoffrey Borman and Maritza Dowling, “Schools and Inequality: A Multilevel Analysis of Coleman’s Equality of Educational Opportunity Data,” Teachers College Record 112 (2010): 1201–-1246; National Center for Education Statistics, School Composition and the Black-White Achievement Gap (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 2015).

2 Ibid. Richard Kahlenberg, All Together Now (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001); Gregory Palardy, “High School Socioeconomic Segregation and Student Attainment,” American Educational Research Journal 50 (2013): 714–54.

3 Firmin, M. “Unstructured Interview,” In Given, L. (Ed.) The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods, http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412963909.n475.

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