Research conducted by the Ford School's Sarah Cohodes has been cited for "defining education in 2024." The 74 network, a non-profit education news service, highlighted Cohodes' research among 11 other studies as some of the "biggest discoveries from the world of education research" this past year. Cohodes' study on Boston-based charter school's found non-urban charter schools often significantly increase student's chances of enrolling and graduating from college.
Cohodes' research is particularly fascinating for its findings on the juxtaposition of non-urban charter schools. Although, Cohodes' study argues higher college enrollment and graduation post-charter school attendance, these same students are also likely to perform worse on standardized tests than public school students. This paradoxical finding, Cohodes suggests, is attributed to families in suburban and rural areas enrolling their students in charter schools that focus on the arts or social-emotional instruction. Students tend to perform worse on standardized tests while attending charter schools that focus on these alternative studies rather than attending schools targeting achievement in core subjects like math or English. Yet, post secondary outcomes for charter school students improve. Cohodes asserts that “The whole premise of test-based accountability is that test-scores predict longer-term outcomes... But this situation shows it is not always the case, and other things are going on in schools.”
