The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how special education teachers describe selecting and applying differentiated instructional strategies for students with mild, moderate, to severe disabilities in self-contained classrooms within a school district in Arizona. Jean Piaget's social constructivism theory and Carol Ann…

This annual report provides information for the 2017-18 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and mathematics…

This annual report provides information for the 2018-19 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and mathematics…

Curriculum Associates' i-Ready is an adaptive diagnostic and individualized instructional tool that has been used in M-DCPS in the last few years. In addition, Curriculum Associates provides the District with results of their predictive model, which uses the students' outcomes on the Fall and Winter i-Ready diagnostic testing as well as the…

An increasing number of parents are opting-out their children from high-stakes. Accountability systems in education have used students' test scores to measure student learning, teacher effectiveness, and school district performance. Students who are opted-out of high-stakes tests are not being evaluated by the state tests, making their level of…

This report examines one component of the current school accountability system--learning gains. We find that learning gain percentages are affected by a variety of factors including starting achievement level, socioeconomic status, and English language learner status when the current definition of learning gains is used. Hence, we propose a new…

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) has seen the number of English learner students in grades K-12 increase in recent years, even as overall enrollment has decreased. In addition, the English learner student population has grown more diverse in race/ethnicity, country of origin, and native language. The increasingly diverse English…

This dissertation analyzes data in order to answer the research question, "Do eighth grade students who have participated regularly in their school band programs for four consecutive years achieve higher scores in New Jersey's Grade Eight PARCC Assessment than students of similar ability who do not play a musical instrument?" Data was…

Although there are several comprehensive measures of children's anxiety symptoms, many have limited utility for screening within school settings. As such, the primary purpose of this dissertation was to develop a brief self-report anxiety measure appropriate for use with students in Grades 3-8. An initial pool of 50 items was developed based on…

In this study, the aim is to examine how special education provided for students within inclusive education has continued at home during the pandemic. This study has employed phenomenology as the research method because this design enables researchers to make in-depth analysis and description. Purposeful sampling method was utilized to determine…

This brief is a continuation of NWEA's ongoing research agenda focused on understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected student reading and math outcomes. This report builds on previous findings to examine students' academic progress at the start of the third school year impacted by the pandemic. The goal of this brief is to summarize…

With 50% new material reflecting current research and pedagogical perspectives, this indispensable course text and teacher resource is now in a thoroughly revised third edition. Leading educators provide a comprehensive picture of reading, writing, and oral language instruction in grades 5-12. Chapters present effective practices for motivating…

There is ongoing debate in the United States about just how diverse, inclusive, and equitable the opt-out movement--and grassroots education activism more broadly--has been over the past decade. Today, a prevailing stereotype holds that the opt-out movement predominantly mobilizes white, middle-class, and suburban parents and is therefore a force…

In March of 2020, in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Illinois mandated the transition to remote instruction for all schools. Although schools had the option to resume in-person instruction during the 2020-21 school year (SY21), the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) acknowledged that in-person instruction may not…

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 was marked by a transition to remote learning in Illinois schools and nationwide. The following school year, schools and families faced difficult decisions about how and when to return to in-person learning. School leaders, parents and caregivers, and students considered how to balance…