For over a century, teacher-centered learning occurred as the most prominent method of teaching students (Medve, 2023). The student-centered classroom provides students the opportunity to focus their learning on curriculum which is interesting to them. "Problem-Based learning (PBL) is a type of student-centered learning heavily influenced by…

This study investigated the effect a computer intervention program has on student proficiency in the Algebra 1 End of Course (EOC) examination. This study utilized the intervention math program IXL Math, a computerized program that targets individual students' skill practice and supports students' need to accelerate mastery of Algebra 1 skills in…

Academic discourse communities and learning circles are characterized by collaboration, sharing commonalities in terms of social interactions and language. The discourse of these communities is composed of jargon, common terminologies, and similarities in how they construe and communicate meaning. This study examines the extent to which discourse…

This report examines one component of the current school accountability system--learning gains. We find that learning gain percentages are affected by a variety of factors including starting achievement level, socioeconomic status, and English language learner status when the current definition of learning gains is used. Hence, we propose a new…

During the 2013/14 school year two Florida school districts sought to develop an early warning system to identify students at risk of low performance on college readiness measures in grade 11 or 12 (such as the SAT or ACT) in order to support them with remedial coursework prior to high school graduation. The study presented in this report provides…

This study examines whether scores from an interim reading assessment in grade 9, the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading--Florida Standards, can be used to identify students who may score below the college readiness benchmark on the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test and ACT Plan in grade 10. Using scores on an…

Ninth Grade Academies (NGAs)--also called Freshman Academies--have attracted national attention as a particularly intensive and promising approach for supporting a successful transition for high school freshmen. An NGA is a self-contained learning community for ninth-graders that operates as a school within a school. NGAs have four core structural…

This study explored the relationship between the reading ability and science achievement of students in grades 5, 8, and 9. Reading ability was assessed with four measures: word recognition, vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, and comprehension (23% of all passages were on science topics). Science achievement was assessed with state…

Interest is growing at the precollege level in computer testing (CT) instead of paper-and-pencil testing (PT) for subjects in the school curriculum, including economics. Before economic educators adopt CT, a better understanding of its likely effects on test-taking behavior and performance compared with PT is needed. Using two volunteer student…

The focus of this study is to add to the outcome research on effective school counseling interventions and to specifically evaluate the effectiveness of the Student Success Skills (SSS) small group intervention with students identified as having drop out potential in the 9th grade. This study analyzed two years of pre-existing, non-identifiable…

Parental involvement is viewed as critical to the development of effective schools and student achievement. The relationship between parental involvement and achievement test scores at a rural high school in Florida was not known. This high school has not met the state standards as determined by the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT)…

This applied dissertation was designed to evaluate a Reading Recovery program at an alternative school in Florida. The Reading Recovery program was used as an intervention for improving students' reading skills and performances on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) that is given each year to students in Grades 7 and 8. The…

The first U.S. charter school opened in 1992, and the scale of the charter movement has since grown to 4,000 schools and more than a million students in 40 states plus the District of Columbia. With this growth has also come a contentious debate about the effects of the schools on their own students and on students in nearby traditional public…

This study examines the different high school academic outcomes of Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) students who entered the ninth grade for the first time during the 1997-98 and 1998-99 school years. Specifically, researchers examined these students to determine the degree to which they earned a standard diploma or an alternative completion…

The purpose of this document is to present, in summary fashion, statistical information on the status of public education in Miami-Dade County. Information is provided in the areas of organization, educational programs and services, achievement, and other outcomes of schooling. Also included are multi-year statistics on student population,…