The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the TVAAS growth score given by the Tennessee Department of Education and the overall Tennessee Educator Assessment Model (TEAM) observation rating for teachers in grades 3 through 8. The participating county public school system for this study is located in Northeast Tennessee.…

Ability grouping in education is a common practice used to differentiate instruction in order to meet the academic needs of students. The primary purpose for grouping students by ability is to increase their academic growth and achievement by providing instruction at the students' current instructional level. However, there is much conflicting…

In accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2001, 100% of students were expected to become proficient on state assessments of reading and mathematics by the end of 2013-2014 academic year. Schools that consistently failed to meet the NCLB's Adequate Yearly Progress requirements were subject to penalties. In 2011, the U.S.…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 forced school districts to become more accountable by requiring all students to read on grade level by the year 2014. However, President Obama's educational policy shift is allowing states to develop their own accountability and improvement system. This study examined fourth and eighth grade math…

In response to the continued pressure placed on American public schools to increase academic achievement, some schools have begun to reorganize instructional environments in an effort to improve student outcomes. The current study examined one such elementary school that implemented a departmentalized model of instruction in fourth and fifth-grade…

Teacher evaluation is currently a major policy issue at all levels of the K-12 system driven in large part by current US Department of Education requirements. The main objective of this study is to explore the patterns of relationship between observational scores and value-added measures of teacher performance in math classrooms and the variation…

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…