Montessori is a highly individualized pedagogy that prioritizes following each child's individual interests over standardized test scores. This quasi-experimental study compares groups of Montessori students (treatment groups, N = 535-710) with control groups of non-Montessori students, matched through the simple matching method, which controls…

The problem addressed in this study was that in response to low standardized test scores, instructional strategies were required to be implemented in English Language Arts (ELA), but teachers in Grades 1 through 5 in the study site experienced challenges using these strategies to meet student learning needs. The explored teachers' experiences and…

This paper focuses on difficulties that primary school students have in facing mathematical word problems. In particular, we are interested in exploring how they develop in the transition from grade 2 to grade 5. The research basis of the hypothesis is that some difficulties detected in grade 5 are already predictable in grade 2. Starting from the…

The study uses data from five assessment points for reading and maths. It focuses on a constant sample of students, all of whom completed a Rising Stars assessment in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also administered three teacher surveys: the first focused on the initial period of lockdown, the second focused on the autumn 2020…

Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has increased significantly over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policy-making and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

Background: South African primary school learners have participated in several national and international literacy (reading and writing) studies that measure learners' achievement in different grades and at different intervals. Numerous scholars have analysed the results of these assessments. We extended their analyses by investigating the grade…

In Texas, English language learner (ELL) students are assessed annually in academic subject areas using the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) at elementary and middle school levels. This supplemental report describes continuously enrolled Austin Independent School District ELLs' performance as compared with all AISD…

In Texas, English language learner (ELL) students are assessed annually in academic subject areas using the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) at elementary and middle school levels. This report describes continuously enrolled Austin Independent School District (AISD) ELLs' performance as compared with all AISD students'…

This study evaluates the impacts and costs of the Reading Partners program, which uses community volunteers to provide one-on-one tutoring to struggling readers in under-resourced elementary schools. The evaluation uses an experimental design. Students were randomly assigned within 19 different Reading Partners sites to a program or control…

Notwithstanding dramatically low levels of professed religiosity in Western Europe, the religious school sector continues to thrive. One explanation for this paradox is that nowadays parents choose religious schools primarily for their higher academic reputation. Empirical evidence for this presumed denominational advantage is mixed. We examine…

California has the largest share of the English Language Learner (ELL) student population in the U.S., and it continues to grow. English Language Learners are the fastest growing group in the public school population and they are underachieving. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal changes in the performance of English…

This study investigates, through a cluster randomized trial, the impact of "Math in Focus," a core mathematics program modeled after instructional approaches used in Singapore, on third- through fifth-grade students' achievement in mathematics. The program is currently being used in more than 400 school districts in the United States.…

Houston Real Men Read is chaired by Texas Senator Rodney Ellis and spearheaded by the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board Trustee Paula M. Harris. Houston Real Men Read is a mentoring program in which men from the Houston community committed one hour, once a month, to read to second, fifth, and seventh-grade students. The program…

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 MIND Research Institute contracted with the Evaluation Research Program at WestEd to conduct an independent assessment of mathematics outcomes in elementary school grades across California that were provided with the ST Math program. Spatial-Temporal (ST) Math is a game-based instructional software designed to boost K-5 and secondary-level…