By 2013, all 50 states and the District of Columbia had adopted college- and career-ready standards in English language arts and mathematics, placing a greater emphasis on argument writing to prepare students for life after high school. Solving the specific problem of how to help teachers teach to new standards for argument writing as well as the…

Background: College- and career-ready standards cite the "special place of argument writing" in preparing students to be college students, professionals, and engaged citizens in an information-rich society (NGA, 2010). To support these critical skills, the National Writing Project (NWP) developed the College, Career, and Community…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

Collective approaches to practice development are increasingly common in the teaching profession. Such initiatives frequently involve groups of teachers taking responsibility for introducing, sharing and developing new pedagogical resources and for aiding their integration into existing practices. This article explores teachers' knowledge work as…

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…

The purpose of the program evaluation was to evaluate two alternative programs in a North Carolina and South Carolina public school district to determine if they are effective in delivering constructive interventions that modify student behavior once students have left the programs and have returned to their regular learning environments. This…

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…

In 2007 Georgia instituted a flexibility policy through which school districts enter into performance contracts with the state, receiving waivers from state rules, provisions, and guidelines in exchange for agreeing to meet annual accountability targets. The performance contracts are intended to incentivize innovations that increase achievement…

These are the appendixes for the report, "District Changes in Student Achievement and Local Practice under Georgia's District and School Flexibility Policy." Five appendixes are included in the document: (1) About the study; (2) Data and methods; (3) Supporting analysis; (4) Survey instrument; and (5) Interview protocol. [For the full…

Achieve3000 publishes a number of online literacy programs that differentiate lessons and activities based on student performance. Magnolia Consulting--an independent, third party evaluation firm--assessed Achieve3000 Solutions' impact on student learning during the 2014-15 school year. The researchers used a randomized control trial, where…

The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) is transitioning from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) to the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® 2.0 (FCAT 2.0) to align with new student academic content standards. This booklet has been prepared to help understand the reports for the FCAT 2.0. It includes explanations of the reports,…

Algebra progress monitoring is a research-based practice that extends a long history of research in curriculum-based measurement (CBM). This article describes the theoretical foundations and research evidence for algebra progress monitoring, along with critical features of the practice. A detailed description of one practitioner's implementation…