What is it about?

The main interest of this study lies in how local discretional authority is associated with local educational outcomes, using the 2010 Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). Based on the Item Response Theory (IRT) model, the present study analyzed the main effects of local government types (charter vs. non-charter counties) reflecting different discretional levels and county urbanicity levels, while controlling for other local factors such as county average per capita income, county free/reduced lunch ratio, county pupil to teacher ratio, and county race ratio.

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Why is it important?

In terms of urbanicity, this study exhibited that the students who live in towns had higher scores than those in cities. The results of this study supported that urbanicity, race ratio, and all socio-economic status variables, such as county free/reduced lunch ratio and income, are influential on educational performance. However, the county type and pupil-teacher ratio variables did not matter. Particularly, the interaction between the average per capita income and urbanicity was meaningful, which shows the average per capita income differently moderated on the educational outcome depending on urbanicity.

Perspectives

Diagnosing the research model with a large effect size, the most predictive variable on local academic performance was the ratio of free/reduced lunch. Future studies should compare the analytic results derived from the collective data used in this study with those of hierarchically nested data with multiple levels such as both schools and counties.

Researcher in Public Affairs & Health Science Jiwon N. Speers
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: A Study on the Relationship between Local Discretional Authority and Educational Performance- Focused on County Level FCAT Scores -, Korean Journal of Local Government & Administration Studies, June 2015, The Korea Association for Local Government and Administration Studies,
DOI: 10.18398/kjlgas.2015.29.2.293.
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