Education reform in the United States is heavily regulated and has undergone various iterations in the past several decades. With each passing legislation, government mandates and educational initiatives become the focus of reform. School districts must constantly find ways to keep up with increasing state and federal accountability standards.…

The lack of access to high-quality schools creates an achievement gap that limits students' access to future earnings and longevity, exacerbating equity concerns across the nation where struggling, low-performing schools are disproportionately responsible for educating students living in poverty. Large Urban School District's Accelerating Campus…

The purpose of this correlational study is to determine the nature of the relationship between school and demographic factors and student achievement using data from the individual schools reported by a school district in Northern Texas. Answers to the following questions were sought: Do the teacher demographic factors (years of experience,…

Statewide assessments in reading and math are required every year under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, at an annual expense of billions of taxpayer dollars. Analyzing 10 years of school-level results from public schools in two states-- Nebraska and Texas--we found that year-to-year correlations of schools' test scores were…

Purpose: The overarching purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the extent to which Grade 4 Black students differed in their reading performance on the Texas state-mandated assessment by their gender and by their economic status. Specifically addressed was the degree to which differences were presented in their ability to…

The purpose of this study is to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the learning of students in public education through the analysis of standardized assessment performance before and during COVID-19. The study also compares virtual learning and face-to-face students' change in performance on the standardized assessments. To answer the…

Accurate and efficient universal screening is a foundational component of multi-tiered systems of support for reading. By the time students reach middle school, educators often have extant data available to inform screening decisions. Therefore, the decision to collect additional data to inform screening should be considered carefully. The…

This study employs an exploratory descriptive quantitative statistics design. District-level results in the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) are explored to describe the achievement gaps that exist in districts implementing Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) programs and districts implementing Dual Language (DL)…

Purpose: The purpose of this journal-ready dissertation was to determine the degree to which enrollment in a Title I, Part A school was related to the reading performance of Grade 4 students on the Texas state-mandated reading assessment. Specifically examined was the extent to which boys and girls enrolled in Title I, Part A schools and non-Title…

This research study investigates the impact of the rapid transition from paper-based to online administration of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams on student performance in a South Texas school district. The transition, mandated by House Bill 3261, presented Texas public schools with a tight timeline for adapting…

Improving reading performance among Hispanic students continues to be a national and state priority. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of literacy centers in first grade bilingual classrooms and its relation to students' Tejas LEE scores. This quasi-experimental study took place in two elementary schools in a South…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether school type (Title I versus non-Title I), English learner (EL) student percentage, and low-socioeconomic status (low-SES) student percentage could statistically predict the percentage of third-grade students who perform at the Meets Grade Level (MGL) performance on the State of Texas…

The state of Texas requires a reading inventory for all kinder, first, and second grades students, as well as the state assessment in reading for third grade. Educators face numerous challenges when attempting to teach children and meet the rigor on state assessments. In order for students to be successful on state assessments, teachers must…

This research uses a descriptive quantitative statistical design to examine campus-level results from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR). The focus is on describing the achievement disparities between campuses that implemented Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) programs and those implementing Dual Language (DL)…

In this investigation, differences in the reading performance as a function of degree of economic disadvantage for Texas Grade 3 students were examined. Data were obtained from the Texas Education Agency on all Texas Grade 3 students for the 2012-2013, 2013-2014, and 2014-2015 school years. In all analyses, statistically significant differences,…