The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted school, work, and daily life on a global scale. In the wake of this unprecedented health crisis, schools across the United States were forced to abruptly adapt their educational delivery models. Understanding how student learning trajectories shifted throughout the ongoing pandemic is critical for equipping…

The Flynn effect, which advocated that there was a rise in the global IQ score, was widely accepted by the relevant scientific community. However, there are recent research findings that this effect has been reversed. In this study, both Flynn and anti-Flynn effects were investigated. The purpose of this study is to analyze students' general,…

The quantitative study examined the impact of the Fountas and Pinnell Classroom (FPC) Shared Reading Collection. The problem this study addressed was the decline of reading scores in the identified rural Missouri school district. The purpose of this quantitative experimental design study was to determine if the district approved 1 year, 2020-21,…

After 25 years with small to moderate gains in performance in mathematics, scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) main assessment declined between 2013 and 2015 in Grades 4 and 8. Previous research has suggested the decline may be linked to the implementation of the "Common Core" state standards. In this…

In October 2023, the California Department of Education released test scores for all students in Grades 3-8 and 11 for the 2022-23 school year. These results represent an opportunity to analyze whether and to what extent student learning has rebounded after the dramatic declines in scores resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related school…

This quantitative study explored how well the "Big Ideas Math (BIM)" curriculum helped third-grade students in Title I schools within the Polston School District (pseudonym) improve their math skills and high-stakes testing scores. Thirteen elementary schools were selected based on factors such as diversity, poverty rates, and academic…

The Right to Education Act in 2009 guaranteed access to free primary education for all children in India ages 6-14. This paper investigates whether national trends in educational data changed around the time of this law using household surveys and administrative data. We document four trends: (1) School-going increases after the passage of RTE,…

Reading Recovery is a first-grade literacy intervention program with notable short-term benefits, but there are sustainability studies that highlight inconclusive evidence of its enduring success. It was unclear if formerly enrolled Reading Recovery students continue to have long-term literacy skill retention after exiting the literacy…

In Brazil, the mean of math test scores for students of the fourth grade declined by approximately 0.2 standard deviation in the late 1990s. However, the potential changes in the distribution of scores have never been addressed. It is unclear if the decline was caused by deterioration in student performance levels at the upper and/or lower tails…

Learning to read proficiently by the end of third grade is one of the best predictors of a student's later academic success. This policy brief analyzes school-level District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System (DC CAS) exam results, which are reported on a four-tiered scale: Below Basic, Basic, Proficient and Advanced. Results found that:…

In order to determine which test is more appropriate to administer to elementary grade students, it is important to consider the purpose of the test in conjunction with the ability and grade level of the students. Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) designed Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) tests mindful of the amount of learning that…

This study examined the science self-efficacy beliefs of students at the transition from elementary school (Grade 6) to middle school (Grade 7) and the transition from middle school (Grade 8) to high school (Grade 9). The purpose was to determine whether students' perceived competence is impacted at these important school transitions and if the…

On August 7th, 2013, the New York State Education Commissioner, John King, announced the initial results of the state's new assessment, which was designed to measure college and career readiness relative to the Common Core Learning Standards. Commissioner King noted that the proficiency rates on these assessments were significantly lower than…

We use a natural experiment to show that the presence of an external examiner has both a direct and an indirect negative effect on the performance of monitored classes in standardized educational tests. The direct effect is the difference in the test performance between classes of the same school with and without external examiners. The indirect…

The purpose of this study is to determine the validity of common assumptions about the rate at which school decline manifests. From a population of 981 elementary schools in the state of Virginia, the author uses three operational definitions of school decline to identify samples of declining schools: Absolute (n = 217), Relational (n = 510), and…