In the mid-1960s, educational lawmakers began passing and implementing plans to raise the achievement of all students across the United States. In these early years of education mandates, the federal government became more involved in public education. Education lawmakers began to focus on struggling learners and how teachers could support those…

Understanding and addressing the literacy needs of middle school students is critical in ensuring their academic success. This quantitative study examines the literacy growth among middle school students participating in Tier II Response to Intervention and Instruction (RTI[superscript 2]) programs over the 2023-2024 academic year. It investigates…

Many teachers have become dissatisfied with their jobs, leaving their school district or the field of education to purse other careers outside of education. Recently, teacher attrition has been a problem for schools in Tennessee. The shortage of teachers in Tennessee led to the elimination of the Teacher Performance Assessment by the Tennessee…

This Brief Report presents an example of assessment validation using an argument-based approach. The instrument we developed is a Brief Assessment of Students' Mature Number Sense, which measures a central goal in mathematics education. We chose to develop this assessment to provide an efficient way to measure the effect of instructional practices…

Whole-school reforms have received widespread attention, but a critical limitation of the current literature is the lack of evidence around whether these extensive and costly interventions improve students' long-term outcomes after they leave reform schools. Leveraging Tennessee's statewide turnaround reforms, we use difference-in-differences…

The American School Counselor Association calls for counselors to utilize multitiered systems of support to minimize gaps. Specifically, Tier 2 interventions provide a method to address equity issues and foster growth. Black male students experience the greatest disparities in schools; therefore, school counselors should consider culturally…

This non-experimental quantitative casual comparative survey study surveyed a sample (n=186) of public elementary (n=90), middle (n=69), and high school (n=57) school administrators (n=57), educators (n=62), and librarians (n=67) from 38 school districts across the state of Tennessee, regarding their perceptions of school librarians' roles defined…

This study aimed to investigate the correlation between the emotional intelligence (EI) of K-12 school principals with student outcomes that included: student achievement, student growth, and student attendance. The participants in this student included principals form various schools in the state of Tennessee. The data from this mixed method…

This quantitative, correlational study aims to determine if a predictive relationship exists between teacher perceptions of Tennessee's teacher evaluation and the linear combination of teacher gender, years of experience, and school-level taught (elementary, middle, high). Although teachers have recognized the current teacher evaluation system,…

The number of English language learners (ELLs) has increased. The problem is ELLs in a middle Tennessee Charter School network meet challenges in achieving English proficiency, thus limiting academic and social prospects. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine if there was a relationship between leader-led…

The era of accountability and a rise in standardized testing during recent years have emerged from policy reform initiatives designed to increase student performance. While the goal was to increase learning standards, it has not yielded the dramatic improvements expected. This study explored if there was a statistically significant difference in…

With increased pressure for schools to demonstrate college and career readiness, it is crucial to explore the roles and activities of school counselors, the preservice training they receive, and how those college and career readiness concepts are integrated into their roles. The research questions were (1) What are the current roles and activities…

In this paper, TNTP reveals five interconnected factors of mobility that young people need in order to thrive: a strong academic foundation, career-connected learning, opportunities to build social capital, personal support in their lives, and civic engagement in their community. These five factors do not work in isolation. Instead, they must be…

The COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented changes to education, influencing both teachers and learners. As a result of the global health crisis, teachers adapted their teaching methods to accommodate their students. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the COVID-19 pandemic challenges on the K-12 education sector…