Since the 1920, colleges and universities have leveraged standardized testing as a way to determine worthiness of access to higher education. Nearly 100 years since its first appearance, the use of standardized testing has become commonplace despite the growing evidence of the socioeconomic and racial disparities among test takers. While some high…

The purpose of this case study was to examine the play based teaching and learning methods at one particular elementary school in southeastern Massachusetts with the aim of identifying methods and practices that are seen as essential in developing the academic and social skills in kindergarten students. This school of study has been utilizing…

Post secondary education is essential to success. To ensure that students who graduate from high school are prepared to make informed decisions about their life after high school, they need to be explicitly taught career development skills. These skills should be part of a comprehensive, results-based, developmentally appropriate comprehensive…

In this qualitative case study the researcher examined educators' perceptions of an RTI/MTSS model of instruction and how staff perceptions relate to fidelity of implementation. The purpose of this research was to investigate educators' understanding of the critical components necessary to support implementation of RTI/MTSS framework. The…

This research is a qualitative case study of graduate certificate programs offered in college counseling in the United States. This study presents historical and current information about eight different college counseling certificate programs and seven themes that describe these programs in the context of national college access and college…

This research explores the phenomenon of peerless curricular innovation, defined as an innovative course that exists at a top-50 business school, but has not been directly replicated by peer schools. These outliers achieve a demonstrated impact on their intended audience, and result from multiple collaborators--not simply a single course created…

This qualitative case study examined the structures and conditions in one Massachusetts school district that supported new teachers. Data was gathered from semi-structured interviews with teachers and administrators, artifact analyses and participant observations of district meetings. While the existing literature on new teacher support focuses on…

While there have been recent efforts to improve the overall public education system in the United States, American students continue to graduate from U.S. public high schools with limited knowledge of U.S. history (Ravitch, 1988; Evans, 2004; Ross, 2006; St. Jarre, 2008; Dillon, 2011). This qualitative case study investigated how high school…

This qualitative case study examined teacher and administrator perceptions of how one Massachusetts school district used the feedback processes to facilitate teacher growth and development. Feedback was defined as any type of information about performance or progress towards a goal that is transferred from one individual or group to another…

The purpose of this study was to remedy the paucity of knowledge about higher education's conflict resolution practice of online dispute resolution by providing an in-depth description of mediator and instructor online practices. Telephone interviews were used as the primary data collection method. Eleven interview questions were relied upon to…

This qualitative case study examined the perceptions of teachers and leaders in one Massachusetts school district about the actions of school leaders that engaged teachers in the reflective process. Utilizing Lave & Wenger's (1991) "Communities of Practice" as a framework enabled the researcher to examine the extent to which a social…

In a first-of-its-kind partnership, Higher Education Partners, LLC (formerly The Princeton Review), a for-profit education corporation, invested millions of dollars to create a facility and underwrite expenses to address a shortage of educational programs at Bristol Community College, a Massachusetts community college, with revenue to be divided…

Beginning in 2000, a number of new graduate schools of education (nGSEs) have been established in the U.S. in response to increasing calls for more effective teachers. Among these are programs affiliated with "No Excuses"-style charter schools, which are focused on closing the achievement gap in urban K-12 schools. Teacher education…

The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of the ways in which educational experiences might differ between a regional vocational technical high school (RVTH) and short-term career-training programs. A particular regional vocational technical high school was selected for its outstanding academic records and placement rates, and a…

This study is about access for low-income students at an elite boarding school. As "feeder schools" to elite colleges and universities, elite boarding schools play a significant role in determining which students will be in the upper class in America; however, little is known about the history of low-income students at these schools. The…