This mixed-methods study was conducted to identify the effects of participation in the Governor's Early Literacy Foundation (GELF) summer pilot reading program on students' academic performance and reading motivation over 2 years. Data from rising first through third-grade students and teachers in 37 public school districts across the state of…

This mixed-methods study was conducted to identify the effects of participation in the Governor's Early Literacy Foundation (GELF) summer pilot reading program on students' academic performance and reading motivation over 2 years. Data from rising first- through third-grade students and teachers in 37 public school districts across the state of…

This mixed-methods study was conducted to identify the effects of participation in the Governor's Early Literacy Foundation (GELF) summer pilot reading program on students' academic performance and reading motivation over 2 years. Data from rising first- through third-grade students and teachers in 37 public school districts across the state of…

Beginning in the 1950s, learning to read was a major focus in elementary schools. Children typically began their reading journey with listening skills. Hearing sounds for letters, then words, come to life from the pages of a book were engaging to children. One way teachers engaged students in learning to read was to read aloud to them in their…

Student attendance is both a critical input and intermediate output of the education production function. However, the malleable classroom-level determinants of student attendance are poorly understood. We estimate the causal effect of class size, class composition, and observable teacher qualifications on student attendance by leveraging the…

Research focused on identifying effective interventions for individuals with Down syndrome is increasingly informed by the behavioral phenotype -- a profile of performance associated with a genetic abnormality. Recent studies substantiate the efficacy of phenotypically aligned instruction in improving basic reading skills for children with Down…

The implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI) has increased over the years and provided students with the support needed to close the learning gap and succeed in school. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perceptions of the effectiveness of the RTI framework in a rural school district in Tennessee. The study included kindergarten…

Academic achievement and absenteeism are two areas that schools are held accountable. Helping families and communities understand the correlation between achievement and attendance is an essential part of improving attendance. The purpose of this research study was to compare student attendance and academic achievement on the CASE Benchmark exams…

The perceptions of Tennessee educators who successfully implemented blended learning in their classrooms were the main focus of this phenomenological study. Blended learning is a modality that uses stations which consist of a teacher-led station, an online station, and an off-line station. Teachers work in small groups with students while others…

Prior research into computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has demonstrated that the use of technology in the classroom has the potential to help underperforming young learners. The literature has also stressed that thorough evidence-based testing is needed to ensure that effective instruction is provided to students and that accurate information is…

Over the last several years, Tennessee has rapidly expanded the use of student growth portfolio models for the purpose of teacher evaluation. Participation, both in the number of districts and teachers, has increased steadily since portfolios were first introduced during the 2011-12 school year, and we expect that participation will continue to…

Students all learn at different rates and need a varying amount of support to reach goals based on individual needs. Response to Intervention (RtI) incorporates individualized research-based strategies based on individual students needs to help promote academic growth and is set up in three tier levels. The purpose of this quantitative ex post…

Although the average daily attendance rate for Tennessee students is 95 percent, almost 45,000, or 10 percent, of Tennessee K-3 students missed at least a month's worth of school days during the 2014-15 school year. These "chronically absent" students present a particular problem for schools that are charged with developing foundational…

Value-added assessment methods have been criticized by researchers and policy makers for a number of reasons. One issue includes the sensitivity of model results across different outcome measures. This study examined the utility of incorporating multivariate latent variable approaches within a traditional value-added framework. We evaluated the…

The use of student achievement data to evaluate an individual teacher's effectiveness has become a new focus in educational policy. This article focuses on the underresearched teacher perception of this new policy measure. Drawing on ethnographic research procedures, this article explores how first-grade teachers in one state navigated a new…