ASSISTments is a free online learning tool for improving students' mathematics achievement by providing immediate feedback and hints to students, detailed information on how students performed to teachers, and instructional suggestions for teachers to use. Researchers at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation conducted an intrinsic,…

Aurelius School District used Curriculum Associates' i-Ready program, which was philosophically aligned to the science of reading and included i-Ready Diagnostic, i-Ready Instruction, and Teacher Toolbox, to improve Cole Middle School students' reading achievement. Because of the high monetary cost of i-Ready, the school district was considering…

Teacher candidates in North Carolina must earn a passing score on the edTPA assessment to get certified. The middle grades education program at Western Carolina University integrates aspects of the edTPA assessment throughout pre-student teaching coursework and field experiences to prepare candidates for this high-stakes assessment. Some of the…

With a focus on the American context, the study investigates a teacher accountability reform as an expanding assemblage of neoliberal governance by providing an account of physical education teachers who were experiencing an accountability reform that required them to document student learning growth for teacher evaluation. Through stratified…

Math performance continues to be an important focus for improvement. The most recent National Report Card in the U.S. suggested student math scores declined in the past two years possibly due to COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures. We report on the implementation of a math homework program that leverages AI-based one-to-one technology,…

The names of the participants and the school district used in this program evaluation are pseudonyms to protect the participant's identity. This program evaluation was from the perceptions of the parent/guardian and faculty of the Garnett County School District (GCSD) K-8 Alternative Learning Program. The study focused on the middle school…

The study established the validity and reliability of a weighted individual performance-based assessment tool within the utility scope of middle school orchestral strings. The following research questions guided this study: 1. What specific string-playing behaviors and corresponding criteria validate a weighted individual performance-based…

This report focuses on a competency-based grading initiative at Carroll Middle School. The initiative was implemented from 2018-19 to 2020-21 to address the lack of alignment between report card grades and End-of-Grade (EOG) test results and was designed to ensure consistent delivery of standards-based instruction, formative assessment, and…

The overall aim of the Effective Implementation Cohort (EIC) investment is to increase district capacity to implement a high-quality middle years math curriculum as part of a Coherent Instructional System (CIS) to accelerate learning for students who are experiencing poverty, Black, Latino/a, and/or English Learner (EL)-Designated ("priority…

In 2007, every district in North Carolina received access to EVAAS (Education Valued-Added Assessment System), a statistical tool designed to give principals a resource to make strong instructional decisions for their schools. The use of EVAAS has now worked its way into state law and its use is mandated in teacher evaluation. However, EVAAS is…

Energy and matter are fundamental, yet challenging concepts in middle school chemistry due to their abstract, unobservable nature. Although it is important for science teachers to elicit a range of students' ideas to design and revise their instruction, capturing such varied ideas using traditional assessments consisting of multiple-choice items…

There is a growing body of research on the validity and reliability of value-added measures, but most of this research has focused on elementary grades. Driven by several federal initiatives such as Race to the Top, Teacher Incentive Fund, and ESEA waivers, however, many states have incorporated value-added measures into the evaluations not only…

These appendixes provide supplemental detail about the analyses and findings presented in Preparing School Leaders for Success: Evaluation of New Leaders' Aspiring Principals Program, 20120-2017 (Gates et al., 2019). This material will be of interest to technically oriented readers who seek more information about the information presented in the…

Despite policy efforts to encourage multiple measures of performance in newly developing teacher evaluation systems, practical constraints often result in evaluations based predominantly on formal classroom observations. Yet there is limited knowledge of how these observational measures relate to student achievement. This article leverages the…

We conducted a theory-based analysis of the underlying structure of the Tripod student perception survey instrument using the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) database (N = 1,049 middle school math class sections; N = 25,423 students). Multilevel item factor analyses suggested that an alternative bifactor structure best fit the Tripod items,…