This quantitative, longitudinal matched pairs study determined whether elementary Spanish immersion students performed better on reading end-of-grade exams in Grades 3-5 than their non-immersion traditional peers in the same grades. African American and Hispanic students from two Spanish immersion schools in a suburban North Carolina district were…

Whether students of color are more or less likely to be identified as having disabilities than similarly situated students who are White in U.S. states with histories of de jure and de facto racial segregation is currently unknown. Unadjusted analyses of large samples of students attending elementary and middle schools in the U.S. South yielded…

As policymakers endeavor to address the teacher shortage as a whole, they should also consider the research around teacher diversity and explore policies that aim to increase the achievement of minority students. This issue of "coNCepts" examines the diversity gap in North Carolina and highlights the need for a strategic solution that…

The 2001 authorization of the No Child Left Behind Act and its standards and accountability requirements generated interest among state education agencies in Florida, Mississippi, and North Carolina, which are served by the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast, in monitoring changes in student reading and math proficiency at the school level.…

NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) results in mathematics and reading are based on representative samples of 1,100 to 2,300 public school students at grade 4 and 900 to 2,100 public school students at grade 8 in each participating urban district in 2013. Twenty-one urban districts participated in the 2013 assessments. The assessments…

"Looking Closer" is the eighth biennial report to SREB states on their progress in meeting SREB's Challenge to Lead goals for education. Each customized state report documents progress on both measurable outcomes and state policies. Through effective policy implementation, the goals can help states drive improvements in student…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), in partnership with the National Assessment Governing Board and the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS), created the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) in 2002 to support the improvement of student achievement in the nation's large urban districts. The TUDA focuses attention on urban…

Researchers have found that self-concept in students fluctuates during times of change, such as the physical transition between elementary school and junior high. Since Catholic school students typically do not have the physical transition or social network changes in junior high, it was hypothesized that their self-concepts would not fluctuate.…

Reforming teacher tenure is an idea that appears to be gaining traction with the underlying assumption being that one can infer to a reasonable degree how well a teacher will perform over her career based on estimates of her early-career effectiveness. Here we explore the potential for using value-added models to estimate performance and inform…

In this study, the authors examined the academic performance of 18 urban districts that participated in the 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The districts participated in grade 4 and grade 8 reading and mathematics assessments. Eleven of these districts also participated in the…

This paper profiles the student subgroup achievement and gap trends in North Carolina for 2010. In grade 8 math (the only grade in which subgroup trends were analyzed by achievement level), North Carolina made gains across the board for all major subgroups at the basic-and-above, proficient-and-above, and advanced levels. Progress in narrowing…

This paper constructs a statistical model of learning that suggests a systematic way of measuring the persistence of treatment effects in education. This method is straightforward to implement, allows for comparisons across educational treatments, and can be related to intuitive benchmarks. We demonstrate the methodology using student-teacher…

This is an abridged, summary report of selected findings from "Pieces of the Puzzle: Factors in the Improvement of Urban School Districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress"--a comprehensive study prepared by the Council of the Great City Schools in collaboration with the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and with…

This report summarizes preliminary and exploratory research conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research on urban school systems participating in the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The study is one of the first large-scale analyses…

This report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) presents results from the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) in mathematics. Representative samples of between 1,800 and 4,300 fourth- and eighth-grade public school students from 18 urban districts participated in the 2009 assessment. Eleven of the districts also…