This is a little beyond the scope of what we cover, but I have a great resource for you. It's a Q&A site like this one called Ask a REL. Visit askarel.org, click on your state, then type in your question. They'll find the existing research (on both sides of the issue) that school officials will care about. It's a service of the US Dept. of Education's Institute of Education Sciences. Good luck!
- Craig
Links in this post:
Ask a REL: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/askarel/