The purpose of this paper is to showcase new research that seeks to provide guidance on the heterogeneity of treatment effects by utilizing the variance of demographic differences in state assessments. This study is focused on a simple randomized block design where students are nested within schools, and within each school students are randomized…

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is committed to providing partners with useful tools to help make inferences from the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) interim assessment scores. One important tool is the concordance table between MAP and state summative assessments. Concordance tables have been used for decades to relate scores on…

There has been a rapid increase in the emergence of minority groups during the past few decades in the United States. Hispanics are the largest minority group that has people who speak English as a second language. The increasing proportion of English Language Learning (ELL) students has made it more difficult to maintain high learning standards.…

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has updated its 2009 intervention report for SuccessMaker®, a set of computer-based courses designed to supplement regular K-8 reading instruction. The program is designed to improve skills in areas such as concepts of print, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, grammar, and…

Randomized experiments are often considered the strongest designs to study the impact of educational interventions. Perhaps the most prevalent class of designs used in large scale education experiments is the cluster randomized design in which entire schools are assigned to treatments. In cluster randomized trials (CRTs) that assign schools to…

This causal comparative study used a set of predictable variables, including school configurations, to predict student proficiency on the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) test in reading and math. The school configurations were K-8 and middle school. The researcher analyzed the 2011-2012 AIMS reading and math achievement scores of…

This ex post facto descriptive-comparative quantitative study compared the differences in reading achievement between groups of 6th- through 8th-grade students enrolled in a response to intervention (RtI) classroom against groups of students enrolled in a general education classroom. Students across English language learner and low socioeconomic…

Background: Cluster-randomized experiments that assign intact groups such as schools or school districts to treatment conditions are increasingly common in educational research. Such experiments are inherently multilevel designs whose sensitivity (statistical power and precision of estimates) depends on the variance decomposition across levels.…

This technical brief responds to an Arizona Department of Education request to study academic performance in schools receiving funding through the federal Title I compensatory education program, the section of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 governing resources for schools and districts serving disadvantaged populations. The brief describes…

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 featured validity evidence for scores from states' alternate assessments of alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AASs). It evaluated students from 6 states who were eligible for an AA-AAS concurrently with measures of academic competence and adaptive behavior. The investigators also assessed students with disabilities who were…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a dual language immersion program had a significant effect on the reading literacy achievement of Spanish and English speaking seventh and eighth graders who were in the program for three years. The research design was a quasi-experimental, nonrandom quantitative research using ex-post facto data.…

This publication contains Arizona public schools' academic standards for grade 4. The contents of this document include the following: (1) The Arts Standard 2006--Grade 4; (2) Comprehensive Health Education/Physical Activity Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (3) Foreign and Native Language Standards 1997--Essentials (Grades 4-8); (4)…

The intent of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 is to hold schools accountable for ensuring that all their students achieve mastery in reading and math, with a particular focus on groups that have traditionally been left behind. Under NCLB, states submit accountability plans to the U.S. Department of Education detailing the rules and…

As part of compliance with with the federal No Child Left Behind Act, this document presents the State Report Card of Arizona for 2009-2010. The report card provides tables relating to percentage of students who passed AIMS in Arizona by subject and grade. The tables shown in this document include: (1) Mathematics Grade 3; (2) Reading Grade 3; (3)…