This study works to assess the degree to which the impact of implementation of Mastery Learning can be described through teacher perception, academic achievement, and student growth. Elementary school teachers in a suburb in North Carolina implemented the Mastery Learning framework. The school's end-of-grade test scores were above state and…

The COVID-19 global pandemic caused a sudden shift from in-person instruction to virtual learning for fifth-grade teachers and students in Title 1 elementary schools. Through professional development opportunities, fifth-grade teachers had to adjust instructional practices to facilitate virtual learning and adopt and embrace new teaching methods…

We document that recent generations of elementary school teachers are significantly more effective in raising student test scores than those from earlier generations. Measuring teachers' value-added for Black and white students separately, the improvements in teaching for Black students are significantly larger than those seen for white students.…

Poverty has been identified as an obstacle to educational success. In 2003, Washington state researchers, Shannon and Bylsma (2007), conducted a study to uncover the commonalities found in schools outperforming their socioeconomic indicators. Their work identified nine characteristics of high-performing schools and determined all successful…

As part of an embedded mixed-method study, qualitative research was conducted to understand how Engineering Is Elementary (EiE) professional development influenced the self-efficacy of K-5 elementary teachers required to teach engineering in a rural school in Southeastern, North Carolina. In fall 2016, proportional stratified sampling was used to…

This integrative review examined correlates, mechanisms, and consequences of teacher bias experienced in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in primary and secondary schools in the United States. Education Resource and Information Center, Sociological Abstracts, and Applied Social Science Index & Abstracts were searched to identify…

This case centers on two early career educators: a principal and teacher struggling to address issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) in their school in the current political context of legislative attacks on critical race theory (CRT) and the simultaneous national Black Lives Matter movement. A talented teacher is reluctantly…

Using a quantitative approach that draws on qualitative methods, this study aimed to identify what, if any, elements within an elementary teacher preparation program have a relationship between elementary student achievement gains in reading and math as well as a teacher's attrition. This study identified elements of teacher training programs…

School closings displace thousands of teachers in the United States every year. This paper explores how elementary school teachers in North Carolina respond to this labor market shock. After documenting in our study that declining enrollment is a key driver of school closings, we find that whereas most displaced teachers move to new schools in the…

This mixed-methods study addressed the generational differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation among elementary teachers in North Carolina. Intrinsic motivation to persist in the profession was examined through the lens of Pink's theory that autonomy, mastery, and purpose determine a person's degree of intrinsic motivation. Information…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how elementary teachers, who use flipped teaching, describe low-achieving math students' engagement in central North Carolina. Two data sources, with 12 individual interviews and three member- checking focus groups, were conducted. The collaborative learning skills taxonomy of…

In this article, we leverage in-depth interview to probe a Third Grade teacher's memories of the 2016-2017 School Year in a Spanish/English Dual Language Immersion (DL/I) school serving one of North Carolina's new Latinx communities. As our analysis will demonstrate, Mariana Castillo's interaction with the events of SY 16-17 combined with her…

Background: There is substantial descriptive and correlational evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated achievement gaps, as historically underserved students have fallen farther behind in reading. Furthermore, contextual factors like concentrated poverty have systematically amplified the negative effects of the pandemic. Recent data…

Current research on special education teacher burnout focused on the external contextual experiences leading to burnout rather than the innermost dimensions of the cognitive processes by which special education teachers experience burnout. Therefore, the purpose of this transcendental phenomenological research study was to explore how K-12 special…

This thematic analysis utilizes teacher insights from their experiences in an online professional development (PD) course on early reading instruction to determine course design features educators perceive as being beneficial and questions and concerns educators raised during the course. We analyzed discussion forum contributions and course…