In Florida, mean proficiency scores are reported on the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT) as well as recommended learning gains from the developmental scale score. Florida now has another within-year measure of growth in reading comprehension from the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR). The FAIR reading comprehension…

Although federal regulations require testing students with severe cognitive disabilities, there is little guidance regarding how technical quality should be established. It is known that challenges exist with documentation of the reliability of scores for alternate assessments. Typical measures of reliability do little in modeling multiple sources…

In recent years, the regression discontinuity design (RDD) has gained widespread recognition as a quasi-experimental method that when used correctly, can produce internally valid estimates of causal effects of a treatment, a program or an intervention (hereafter referred to as treatment effects). In an RDD study, subjects or groups of subjects…

This technical report describes the conceptual foundation and measurement properties of the Reading Inventory and Scholastic Evaluation (RISE). The RISE is a 6-subtest, Web-administered reading skills components battery. The theoretical and empirical foundations of each subtest in the battery are reviewed, as well as item designs. The results…

Most principles and propositions in the science of reading are derived from research on Latin orthographies, usually, in English while much less is known about Semitic orthographies, namely, Arabic. This study investigated the effect of vowels and type of genre on oral accuracy, oral rate, and oral comprehension in reading Arabic orthography. A…

With teacher quality repeatedly cited as the most important "schooling" factor influencing student achievement, there has been increased interest in examining the efficacy of teacher training programs. This paper presents the results of research investigating the relationship between teachers who graduate from different training programs…

This report focuses on the initial development of the predicted score paths for ACT Aspire reporting. The paths provide predicted score ranges for the next two years--as well as predicted ACT score ranges for tests administered at grades 9 and 10. Longitudinal ACT Aspire data for students tested in spring 2013 and spring 2014, as well as…

Due to budget shortfalls, teacher furloughs were imposed in 2009 in Hawaii Public Schools. The furloughs resulted in a 2009-2010 school year of 167 days as opposed to the regular school year of 180 days. The purpose of this causal-comparative study with a pretest-posttest design was to examine the found effects of those furloughs on academic…

Development of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and the creation of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), changes the pattern of accountability testing. These changes raise the question: "How should NAEP's validity and utility be…

Eliminating inequity in public education is a central goal of the No Child left Behind (NCLB) act. Controlling for 3rd-grade performance, the impact of English language learner (ELL) status, socioeconomic status (SES), and special education (SPED) status on a cohort's reading performance was investigated from elementary to high school through a…

This Information Capsule answers the most frequently asked questions about M-DCPS' academic performance during the 2011-2012 school year. Over the past year, the Florida Department of Education made over 28 changes to the school grading formula, including the transition to new, more rigorous assessments, new accountability components, and…

Reading fluency has been identified as a key component in effective literacy instruction (National Reading Panel, 2000). Instruction in reading fluency has been shown to lead to improvements in reading achievement. Reading fluency instruction is most commonly associated with guided repeated oral reading instruction. In the present retrospective…

This study explored the relationships among the components of the Arizona Department of Education's new teacher evaluation model, with a particular focus on the extent to which ratings from the state model's teacher observation instrument differentiated higher and lower performance. The study used teacher-level evaluation data collected by the…

This study followed a cohort of students from Grade 1 to Grade 11 in one struggling school district that had Reading Recovery (RR) in the Grade 1. The RR program is an intervention given only to students in the Grade 1 who are reading below grade level on the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Assessment. The researched district had a high poverty, high…

This general achievement trends profile includes information that the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) obtained from states from fall 2008 through April 2009. Included herein are: (1) Bullet points summarizing key findings about achievement trends in that state at three performance…