This doctoral project is a pilot study to assess the effectiveness of a church discipleship co-op designed to convey a biblical worldview to middle and high school students enrolled in charter homeschooling in Southern California. Research by the Nehemiah Institute indicated that 90% of Christian families in the United States send their children…

This article explores the special case of integrative teaching and learning in music as a model for 21st century music education policy reform based on the principles that have evolved out of arts integration research and practices over the past century and informed by the recent rising tide of evidence of music's impact on brain capacity and…

The Tennessee Achievement School District (ASD) was created in 2011 to rapidly turn around the lowest performing schools in the state by authorizing high performing charter management organizations to operate the schools. A lack of enough quality applicants, however, led the district to directly run a group of schools. This research investigates…

This comparative case (Merriam, 2009) study explored two charter school principals' engagement in instructional leadership. Analysis of three data sources--interviews, observations, and documents--revealed that principals were almost exclusively focused on state accountability and possessed limited knowledge of pedagogical practices. In…

Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) commissioned Dr. Marcus Winters to analyze the factors driving the special education gap between Denver's charter and traditional public elementary and middle schools. Using student-level data, Winters shows that Denver's special education enrollment gap starts at roughly 2 percentage points in…

The ninth annual Boston Opportunity Agenda Report Card looks at how the pandemic has affected many of the indicators used to track how Boston students are doing in education from early childhood through adulthood, as well as tracking the landscape of the Opportunity Agenda's efforts to strengthen the education pipeline. This report card contains…

Increases in the number of English language learner (ELL) students in the United States has led to a significant need for research that explores teaching and learning for ELL students in science and other content-area classrooms. This qualitative study investigated middle-school ELL students' (N = 12) beliefs and practices surrounding science…

Executive functioning (EF) is a strong predictor of children's and adolescents' academic performance. Although research indicates that EF can increase during childhood and adolescence, few studies have tracked the effect of EF on academic performance throughout the middle school grades. EF was measured at the end of Grades 6-9 through 21 teachers'…

A growing number of adolescents are taking all or most of their courses online. This places a greater responsibility on parents to support and facilitate their students' learning. This case study used teacher surveys and interviews to better understand how teachers perceived and supported parents' attempts to support their online students at a…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is an influential and rapidly growing nationwide network of charter schools serving primarily disadvantaged minority students. Prominent elements of KIPP's educational model include high expectations for student achievement and behavior, and a substantial increase in time in school. KIPP is being watched…

This study examined the effect of learning progression-aligned formal embedded formative assessment on conceptual change and achievement in middle-school science. Fifty-two sixth graders were randomly assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. Both groups were taught about sinking and floating by the same teacher with identical…

This paper investigates Mandarin learning experiences of Chinese American teenagers from working-class families. Drawing on a subset of data from a larger ethnographic study, we focus on 14 middle schoolers who studied Mandarin as a heritage language at a socially engaging school with Mandarin as part of its official curriculum. The data highlight…

International comparisons of student mathematics achievement (OECD, 2014) continue to show that US students are lagging significantly behind many other countries both in math content areas (e.g., quantity, space and shape) and in mathematical practices (e.g., formulating, interpreting). Mathematical practices, such as constructing arguments or…

This policy brief is the second in a series of in-depth case studies exploring how top-performing charter schools have incorporated civic learning in their school curriculum and school culture. This brief focuses on National Heritage Academies, a for-profit charter management company that runs 74 schools in Michigan and eight other states. NHA…

The study examined the effect of 60 New Jersey charter schools on annual student achievement growth in reading and math. The study was based on data from a large sample of students in grades 3-8 during 5 school years (2006-07 through 2010-11). The study authors matched charter school students to students attending traditional public schools based…