To foster students' meaningful learning of science, we designed and implemented a unit for five third-grade students that allowed them to understand Carbon Footprint (CF) in a public school in North Texas. The unit lasted seven weeks, where students identified the effects of distance traveled and packaging on the CF of certain consumable products.…

In this paper we identify, name, and operationalize six borders typically found in school settings that include dual language classrooms: bordered languages, knowledge, content areas, bodies, selves, and teachers. We identify these borders as a point of departure to show an example of how a two-way dual language classroom operated through a form…

This ethnographic study reports on one elementary literacy coach's response to high-stakes testing and her approach to support third- through fifth-grade teachers in a Title I school in Texas. Sources of data included field notes and observations of classes and meetings, audio/video recordings, and transcribed interviews. The findings illustrate…

This article provides an in-depth exploration of the language ecologies of two classrooms attempting to implement a two-way dual language (TWDL) program and its mediating conditions. Drawing on ethnographic methods and a sociocultural understanding of language, we examined both teachers' and students' language ideologies and language practices,…

This article documents and interrogates top-down district-wide implementation of a two-way dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program in a large urban district. We carried out a language policy ethnography to explore the way two schools' teams of third grade teachers worked together to negotiate the intersection of DLBE implementation and…

This technical report summarizes student-level analyses conducted with the SEL Skills Survey and the Student Climate Survey to determine if a single measure of students' SEL skill acquisition and perceptions of school climate is possible. A separate research brief of this report also was published. [This report was supported by St. David's…

Prior research has documented that classroom-level variables have a significant effect on student outcomes; however, previous findings have typically focused on average student outcomes and have only recently begun to use hierarchical linear modeling techniques. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of classroom-level variables on the…

In partnership with three universities, the Cooper Institute, Dallas, completed the Texas Youth Fitness Study from 2008 to 2009. The study explored three key questions: (1) Is physical fitness associated with academic performance?; (2) Can physical education teachers collect high-quality information on student fitness?; and (3) Are school policies…

Student perceptions of classroom environment can provide useful criteria for evaluating educational alternatives. The My Class Inventory (MCI) was used with 588 3rd- to 5th-grade students in Texas in evaluating the effectiveness of instruction using a textbook, science kits, or a combination of both. Various analyses attested to the factorial…

This paper reports the results of a descriptive study on the use of a technology-enhanced formative assessment system called Accelerated Math (AM) for ELLs and their native-English-speaking (NES) peers. It was comprised of analyses of an extant database of 18,549 students, including 2,057 ELLs, from grades 1 through 8 across 30 U.S. states. These…

This article focuses on how 47 Latinos/as (Grades 2-5) described their day in a state-rated exemplary public school. They attended Tarea, a pseudonym for a test-focused South Texas school. Interviews took place during an after-school cultural arts program I taught at Tarea for enrichment purposes. The most common interview themes were lack of…

To examine how neighborhood characteristics influence academic achievement, data were drawn from a community survey of low-income neighborhoods and linked with data on performance on standardized testing for third-grade students attending elementary schools in those communities. Results of multilevel logistic regressions indicated that probability…

Substantial uncertainty exists about the impact of school quality on the black-white achievement gap. Our results, based on both Texas Schools Project (TSP) administrative data and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS), differ noticeably from other recent analyses of the black-white achievement gap by providing strong evidence that…

The present research is a third-party study of the effects of the School Renaissance (SR) comprehensive school reform (CSR) model on student achievement in 11 elementary and middle schools in Texas. The primary measures used in the study were the Texas Learning Index (TLI) reading and mathematics scores obtained through administration of the Texas…