Researchers explored how 13 states in which policymakers have adopted an A-F school letter grade accountability system performed on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) post-policy implementation. Researchers found mixed results, with approximately half of these 13 states increasing achievement post-policy, and the other…

This study analyzed the relationship between benchmark scores from the newly published Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills Math (i.e., Acadience™) math probes and student performance on math and reading sections of a state-mandated high-stakes test. Participants were 420 students enrolled in third, fourth, and fifth grades in a rural…

This research study was conducted to gain a better understanding of teacher perceptions, in both low-performing and high-performing urban charter schools, of the impact of administrative support, professional development, and teacher preparation in closing the achievement gap among fourth grade students. The trend over the last five years among…

School districts across the United States have increasingly adopted information and communications technology (ICT) in an attempt to improve student achievement across a wide range of educational settings. This paper examines the impacts of Achieve3000, an early literacy program that differentiates non-fiction reading passages based on individual…

Third grade is a critical checkpoint in a child's educational journey. By the end of third grade, children need literacy skills that prepare them for increasing curriculum demands in fourth grade and beyond. Students who are not reading on grade level by this point are significantly more likely to drop out of high school or fail to graduate on…

Reading comprehension growth trajectories from 3rd to 7th grade were estimated for 99,919 students on a state reading comprehension assessment. We examined whether differences between students in general education (GE) and groups of students identified as exceptional learners were best characterized as stable, widening, or narrowing. The groups…

This quantitative, correlational study investigated the relationship between the North Carolina End of Grade Assessment of Reading Comprehension (NCEOG) and mClass Reading 3D assessment in a North Carolina elementary school. It especially examined the degree to which mClass Reading 3D measures predict scores on the reading comprehension portion of…

This study was conducted to compare two elementary schools to determine what strategies were being used to cause a significant difference in the scores between the two schools. One school is a high poverty, high minority, high growth school while the other school is a high poverty, high minority, low performing school within the same rural school…

The present study investigated the relationship between rapid recognition of individual words (Word Recognition Test) and two measures of contextual reading: (1) grade-level Passage Reading Test (IRI passage) and (2) performance on standardized STAR Reading Test. To establish if time of presentation on the word recognition test was a factor in…

This article develops a simple model of teacher value-added to show how efficient use of information across subjects can improve the predictive ability of value-added models. Using matched student-teacher data from North Carolina, we show that the optimal use of math and reading scores improves the fit of prediction models of overall future…

This research was designed to examine the difference in student performance between minority magnet school students who live in the residential area for those magnet schools and minority students assigned to a non-magnet residential school. This difference in performance was measured by scale score differences from the North Carolina End-of-Grade…

While instructional time is viewed as crucial to learning, little is known about the effectiveness of reducing absences relative to increasing the number of school days. In this regard, this paper jointly estimates the effect of absences and length of the school calendar on test score performance. Using administrative data from North Carolina…

Research has shown that there is a strong link between reading comprehension and vocabulary, yet many children lack the required vocabulary needed to perform adequately on reading comprehension assessments. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the teaching of Larry Bell's 12 Powerful Words vocabulary program in order to raise third, fourth…

This research study explored the current state of teacher morale in fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms in three low socioeconomic schools. Additional research questions addressed correlational relationships among the variables of teacher morale, student engagement, and student achievement growth as measured by the North Carolina Teacher Working…

This study examines the incentive effects of North Carolina's practice of awarding performance bonuses on test score achievement on the state tests. Bonuses were awarded based solely on whether a school exceeds a threshold on a continuous performance metric. The study uses a sharp regression discontinuity design, an approach with strong internal…