Strategies in reading are viewed as essential tools needed to increase comprehension and learning from text. Especially in large-scale assessments, reliable and economic measures of reading strategies are needed which are valid to assess the strategy-performance relation. Questionnaire-based self-report measures are very popular but often fail to…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) reading Rasch unIT (RIT) score and State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) and Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS) reading achievement among English learners in Grades 8 and 9. The study also…

Researchers in science education lacks valid and reliable instruments to assess students' "disciplinary" and "epistemic" reading of scientific texts. The main purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Reading in Science Holistic Assessment (RISHA) to assess students' holistic reading of scientific texts. RISHA…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the concept of the ninth grade academy structure in Texas high schools affects a variety of variables indicative of student achievement. Data representative of performance by students served in 30 schools with a separately structured ninth grade academy were compared to data representative of…

To meet the constantly changing needs of schools and diverse learners, educators must frequently monitor student learning, revise curricula, and improve instruction. Consequently, it is critical that careful analyses of student performance data are ongoing components of curriculum decision-making processes. The primary purpose of this study is to…

Despite its promise to help teachers meet the needs of diverse learners, district usage of Achieve3000® among most students with access to it remains far below the optimal level necessary for them to realize literacy growth and college and career readiness. Only a tiny minority of students (402 out of about 111,000) seem to be engaging Achieve3000…

StudentU is a comprehensive program that provides education, nutrition, and social support services to disadvantaged middle and high school students outside of the regular school day. In this paper I investigate the effects of this multiyear program on the early high school outcomes of participating students by exploiting data from oversubscribed…

This guide was created as a resource to help families better understand "Measures of Academic Progress"® (MAP®), and their child's results. The guide provides answers to a variety of questions such as: "What is MAP?"; "What does MAP measure?"; "How do schools and teachers use MAP scores?"; "Can MAP tell…

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…

Ninth grade often is considered a make-or-break year in determining whether students will be successful in high school and beyond. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) created the Texas Ninth Grade Transition and Intervention Program to ease the transition of at-risk students into high school and increase the likelihood that they graduate on time and…

Achieve3000®, a web-based differentiated reading program based on the Lexile® Framework and designed to improve student reading ability and comprehension of increasingly complex texts, was made available to approximately 100,000 secondary students across 98 HISD schools during the 2017-2018 academic year. The present evaluation, using a select…

In 2013, the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) published the first-ever report on English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in member districts, reporting on a range of indicators in addition to ELL enrollment and languages spoken by such students. This report updates most of the data presented in the 2013 Council ELL report, shedding light…

Research for Action (RFA) is currently in the second year of a five-year external evaluation of the Project Leadership and Investment for Transformation (LIFT) Initiative in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District (CMS). Project LIFT is a public-private partnership between CMS and the local philanthropic and business communities in Charlotte,…

The Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach to education that aims to improve achievement for all students by improving a school's effectiveness at building relationships, leveraging real-time student data, and capitalizing on the strengths of each student. The U.S. Department of Education's…

The Illinois Striving Readers (ISR) Project had two purposes: (1) implement a supplemental reading intervention for students in ninth grade who were reading below grade level; and (2) study the impact of the intervention on students' performance on standardized assessments using a randomized control trial design. The Illinois Striving Readers…