The purpose of this quantitative ex post facto study was to examine the differences that exist in academic outcomes between mobile and non-mobile middle-school students at a school district in Northeastern New Jersey. Students are considered mobile if they voluntarily change schools, whereas non-mobile students do not experience such transitions.…

Roaring Falls Unified School District (a pseudonym), an urban New Jersey district near NYC, was challenged by K-8 Multilingual Language Learners (MLLs) who lagged significantly behind general education students in English Language Arts (ELA). The District had roughly 12,000 students, of whom 93.0% were Hispanic, 26.2% were MLLs, and 32.0% were…

The academic achievement gap is a persistent and pernicious educational challenge confounded with race and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap persists despite over three decades of interventions and federal, state, and local policies and initiatives meant to close it. We examine the achievement gap in one of the most diverse states in the…

This correlational, explanatory, longitudinal study sought to determine the combination of community and family-level demographic variables found in the 2010 U.S. Census data that most accurately predicted a New Jersey school district's percentage of students scoring proficient or above on the 2010, 2011, and 2012 NJ ASK 7 in Language Arts and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of early childhood program participation on academic achievement by grade 3. This case study utilized a quantitative approach to data collection. For purposes of this research, one P-12 school district in central New Jersey was studied to look at the influence of early childhood program…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the length of superintendent tenure, longevity, and continuity relative to student achievement as evidenced by the 2008-2009 3rd Grade New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (NJASK) in language arts. Achievement in the study was defined as those students who…

Despite increasing accountability requirements and a national call for transparency in public policy, Mid-Atlantic Region state education agencies indicate that they have little information about what instructional materials districts adopt. This report describes first-year results of an ongoing project to generate and share information on core…

New Jersey's Abbott Preschool program is of broad national and international interest because the Abbott program provides a model for building a high-quality system of universal pre-K through public-private partnerships that transform the existing system. The program offers high-quality pre-K to all children in 31 New Jersey communities with high…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of a walkthrough protocol combined with reflective practice had the capacity to influence the sample school's objectives of building staff capacity, strengthening instructional delivery in classrooms, and improving student learning. This study's primary focus is to examine the…

Despite increasing accountability requirements and a national call for transparency in public policy, Mid-Atlantic Region state education agencies indicate that they have little information about what instructional materials districts adopt. This report describes first-year results of an ongoing project to generate and share information on core…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the length of years of preschool attendance on the academic achievement and retention of third and fourth grade students in high and low achieving schools. The study consisted of the analysis of secondary data, i.e., mathematics and language arts literacy scores as the measurement of academic…

The Newark Public Schools (NPS) has been at the center of reform and improvement efforts in New Jersey for the better part of 12 years. The results of these efforts are both significant and frustrating. The school district has made substantial progress over the last few years; but it also has a long way to go before it attains the level of…