High-quality K-12 instructional materials can meaningfully improve teaching practice and student achievement, especially when paired with professional learning support. Yet state policymakers have usually left ultimate authority for textbook selection to school district leaders. Consequently, the quality of materials across U.S. classrooms and…

For the last decade or more, circulation numbers of physical materials have declined in academic libraries across the United States. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered society and daily life, not to mention library functions. In particular, fears of contagion via physical surfaces and transmission by contact led many…

Young people have long been on the front lines of pushing for systemic change. The Prichard Committee Student Voice Team, consisting of 100 self-selected students from across Kentucky, works to improve schools and society. This article describes the Student Voice Team, an extension of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, an organization…

This examination of secondary agricultural education students' performance was used to determine if students could perform up to industry standards. In this study, the industry standard were blueprints created by engineers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Students had to fabricate a Cost-effective Roll-Over Protective…

This study explored factors impacting the decision for gifted females to pursue a career in computer science. The study used a phenomenological approach to delve into the experiences of ten gifted alumnae of The Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science (Gatton), a residential STEM program, aiming to reveal nuanced insights into factors shaping…

Purpose: Our primary purpose is to examine the implementation of college- and- career- readiness content standards in Kentucky, Ohio, and Texas through the lens of distributed leadership theory, and to determine the affordances and challenges of this distributed leadership through the lens of policy attribute theory. Research Methods/Approach: We…

Some universal behavioural screening processes require classroom teachers to complete a risk assessment measure on each student in their class, leading to a possible, but unexplored, problem: risk assessment scores may be influenced by the teacher completing the measure. The current study investigated whether teacher-reported risk assessment…

Objective: Traditional-age students attending a rural community college in Kentucky's Appalachian region were interviewed, along with faculty members and administrators, to identify phenomena serving as sources of encouragement or as barriers to retention from the point of entry to the point of transfer. Method: Students' perspectives were…

Calls for increased interdisciplinary education have led to the development of numerous teaching methods designed to help teachers provide meaningful experiences for their students. However, methods of guiding teachers in the successful adoption of innovative teaching methods are not firmly set. This qualitative study sought to better understand…

This article reports the findings of the 2011 results of 'very rural' Kentucky high schools on the Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) Survey to determine whether differences existed between high and low performing rural schools across specific survey items. Schools with ACT scores one standard deviation (or more) above their…

Although prior research has suggested that some students may be averse to taking out loans to finance their college education, there is little empirical evidence showing the extent to which loan aversion exists or how it affects different populations of students. This study provides the first large-scale quantitative evidence of levels of loan…

This article describes a qualitative study examining factors influencing the decision-making processes of traditional-age students living in rural, southeastern Kentucky as they progress toward acquiring a bachelor's degree using the community college as a steppingstone. Specifically, this study explored students' perspectives of the factors that…

The common standards are not just for public schools. With all but four states having adopted them since 2010, districts have little choice but to implement the Common Core State Standards. But many private schools are also making the transition. Many Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and other private schools have adopted at least portions of the…

There is limited research assessing the effectiveness of family engagement for improving permanency for children. An important challenge is that randomized designs are not feasible for evaluating these practices because effective implementation of family engagement requires systemic change. Findings from a national evaluation are presented to…

School leadership has been shown to exert a positive but mostly indirect influence on school and student outcomes. Currently, there is great interest in how quality leadership preparation is related to leadership practice and improved teacher outcomes. The purpose of the study was to understand the moderating influence of leadership preparation on…