The concentration in K-12 education on higher-order thinking has diminished the importance of math fact automaticity, which is the ability to deliver a correct answer immediately from long-term memory without impeding the working memory. This quantitative study investigated the influence of automaticity of high school students on their Missouri…

The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative study was to determine the effectiveness of one-to-one device initiatives in a secondary school setting. Not only was this study focused on the academic achievement of all students, but also the impact of such initiatives on the academic achievement in the free and reduced lunch population. The…

This quantitative study examined the achievement gap in mathematics through the analysis of standardized test scores from a suburban school district in Saint Louis County. The problem this study addressed is that students of color in Missouri continue to score well below their peers on mathematics assessments (Bohrnstedt et al., 2015; Kotok, 2017;…

School finance formulas vary from state to state, impacting school district educational outcomes. Rural school districts are especially affected due to inherent challenges in producing high student achievement scores. This study examined whether variables including socioeconomic status and per-pupil local tax level impacted student achievement…

We develop a new framework for identifying at-risk students in public schools. Our framework has two fundamental advantages over "status quo" systems: (1) it is based on a clear definition of what it means for a student to be at risk and (2) it leverages states' rich administrative data systems to produce more informative risk measures.…

There is empirical evidence of substantial heterogeneity in economic mobility across geographic areas and the efficacy of schools has been suggested as an explanatory factor. Using administrative microdata from seven states covering nearly 3 million students, we explore the potential role of schools in promoting economic mobility by estimating…

To increase opportunities for students to take more advanced math courses in high school, many school districts enroll grade 8 students in Algebra I, a gateway course for advanced math. But students who take Algebra I in grade 8 and skip other math courses, such as grade 8 general math, might miss opportunities to develop the foundational…

Background/Context: The problems that school district leaders identify and how they frame them have consequences--for both policy implementation and the ways that teachers respond. Although that is likely true in all community contexts (from rural to urban, inside and outside metropolitan centers), the influence of broader discourses associated…

Spatial-Temporal Math (ST Math) is game-based, instructional software for K-12 students created by the MIND Research Institute (MIND). ST Math is integrated into classroom instruction, but can also be used in a computer lab or at home. The ST Math software games begin without language and symbol abstractions by posing math programs as purely…

To increase opportunities for students to take more advanced math courses in high school, many school districts enroll grade 8 students in Algebra I, a gateway course for advanced math. But students who take Algebra I in grade 8 and skip other math courses, such as grade 8 general math, might miss opportunities to develop the foundational…

These are the appendixes for the report, "What Grade 7 Foundational Knowledge and Skills Are Associated with Missouri Students' Algebra I Achievement in Grade 8?" To increase opportunities for students to take more advanced math courses in high school, many school districts enroll grade 8 students in Algebra I, a gateway course for…

To increase opportunities for students to take more advanced math courses in high school, many school districts enroll grade 8 students in Algebra I, a gateway course for advanced math. But students who take Algebra I in grade 8 and skip other math courses, such as grade 8 general math, might miss opportunities to develop the foundational…

Spending limited educational budgets on technology for classrooms is a strategy many school districts have used to increase student achievement (Levenson, Baehr, Smith, & Sullivan, 2014). In recent years, the technology movement allowed for arbitrary purchasing of devices with little to no pedagogical planning for how technology device usage…

Although spelling skill progress has typically been studied within the context of students' responses to written story starters (Deno, Marsten, & Mirkin, 1982; Fuchs & Fuchs, 2011; Hosp, Hosp, & Howell, 2007; Shinn & Shinn, 2002), there has been little research conducted within a curriculum-based measurement framework that has…

While many factors have been identified as influencing student academic performance, previous studies consistently determined effective teaching as the most significant factor, within the control of educators, leading to improved student achievement. Nonetheless, educational experts, statisticians, and policy-makers alike acknowledged the…