As the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic closes schools across the nation, education systems are scrambling to meet the needs of schools, families, and 55.1 million students. The economic impacts and trauma of recent events will also have far reaching effects that will likely exacerbate long-standing opportunity gaps. While it is difficult to…

Drawing inferences about the extent to which student performance reflects instructional opportunities relies on the premise that the measure of student performance is reflective of instructional opportunities. An instructional sensitivity framework suggests that some assessments are more sensitive to detecting differences in instructional…

How can afterschool programs engage middle school students of color as they enter their teenage years? The authors asked this question while working with the Bridge Project, a drop-in community-based academic enrichment program serving low-income children and adolescents of color living in public housing in Denver, Colorado. Faced with dwindling…

The purpose of this mixed study was to investigate the differences between higher and lower achievement middle school rates pertaining to leadership qualities, opportunity to learn, instructional practices, parental involvement, and professional development. Qualitatively, principals were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol.…

Current legislation encourages schools to educate students with disabilities (SWDs) in general education settings to the greatest extent appropriate. However, it is unclear whether inclusion in general education settings provides SWDs a sufficient opportunity to learn the academic content assessed by accountability measures. This initial study was…

In the accountability era, educators are pressed to use evidence-based practice. In this comparative case study, we examine the learning opportunities afforded by teachers' data use conversations. Using situated discourse analysis, we compare two middle school mathematics teacher workgroups interpreting data from the same district assessment.…

While professional developers have been encouraging teachers to plan for discourse around problem solving tasks as a way to orchestrate mathematically productive discourse (Stein, Engle, Smith, & Hughes, 2008; Stein, Smith, Henningsen, & Silver, 2009) no research has been conducted explicitly examining the relationship between the plans…

This article examines two critical questions related to equality of educational opportunity. First, does the academic advantage that was observed in Catholic high schools more than two decades ago continue to hold for contemporary students in Catholic middle schools? Second, how closely do different school sectors adhere to the common school…

There is a gap in academic achievement, as evidenced on standardized tests, between European American, Latino American, and African American students in the United States. In 2011, the United States average scale scores for 8th grade students on the NAEP mathematics assessment for European American, Latino American, and African American students…

This dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the self-determination literature documenting the importance of promoting the self-determination of transition and secondary age students with disabilities, as well as a summary of research examining the self-determination of students with disabilities across…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a network of charter schools designed to improve the educational opportunities available to low-income families. KIPP schools seek to boost their students' academic achievement and, ultimately, prepare them to enroll and succeed in college. This paper provides the most thorough analysis to date of the…

As Coos County youth age, their attachment to their communities may deteriorate. This brief presents new data from the Coos Youth Study. This research indicates efforts to keep young people in Coos may benefit from efforts to show students that their views matter to adults in their communities. (Contains 8 figures and 10 endnotes.) [This work was…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a bold effort to create a network of charter schools designed to transform and improve the educational opportunities available to low/income families. KIPP schools seek to actively engage students and parents in the educational process, expand the time and effort students devote to their studies, reinforce…