English language proficiency (ELP) assessment scores are used by states to make high-stakes decisions related to linguistic support in instruction and assessment for English learner (EL) students and for EL student reclassification. Changes to both academic content standards and ELP academic standards within the last decade have resulted in…

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact that meaningful watershed educational experiences (MWEE) had on the academic achievement of middle school students. A quantitative, ex post facto causal-comparative design was used. The sample population consisted of 1067 8th-grade students across four middle schools within the Pennsylvania…

The study was a pilot intervention to develop Year 5-8 students' close reading and writing of literary texts using the T-Shape Literacy Model (Wilson and Jesson in Set Res Inf Teach 1:15-22, 2019). Students analysed text sets to explore how different authors use language to engender mood and atmosphere. The study used a single-subject design logic…

It is not uncommon for randomised trials in education to have the performance of sample members in national examinations as their primary outcome. In many cases, examination results are available as summary measures only. Taking the example of GCSE examination results in England, this paper shows that using summary measures of an underlying score…

Using statewide administrative data from a sample of children enrolled in public prekindergarten (pre-K) programs in Massachusetts, I examined heterogeneity in children's absenteeism patterns from pre-K to Grade 3 and linked these patterns to their Grade 3 academic outcomes. After latent class growth analysis, six absenteeism patterns emerged. The…

Prior work has shown that students' self-reported levels on social-emotional measures predict achievement levels and gains, but we have little evidence on whether within-student changes in self-reports on social-emotional surveys are predictive of changes in theoretically related academic and behavioral outcomes. We use large-scale data from the…

Informational reading instruction plays an important role in early literacy but has traditionally received less emphasis than literary text in elementary classrooms. This mixed-methods study illuminates trends from observed reading instruction of 77 first-year elementary teachers, drawing on data from 761 lesson segments scored with the Protocol…

Scores from observational measures of teaching have recently been put to many uses within school systems, including communicating a standard of practice and providing teacher feedback, identifying teachers for professional development, monitoring system equity, and making employment decisions. In each of these uses, observation scores are…

A variety of databases were used to answer questions about charter and public schools with regard low-income students, special education students, and academic performance. Charter schools in Dallas and Detroit served comparable numbers of poor children, but charter schools enrolled far fewer students in special education.…

We exploit information about parental preference and a randomized component in the assignment of students to schools within a deferred acceptance (DA) mechanism to estimate the causal effect of enrolling in a charter school in Newark, New Jersey, on student test scores. The estimates incorporate variation from students attending about 70% of the…

This study considers a contextualized approach to grammar instruction, asking: "Does embedded instruction using published authors as mentors improve grammar and usage for young writers?" Twenty-three students in one second-grade classroom participated. Students were taught grammar conventions through use of mentor texts for 45 minutes a…

Background: Policymakers have debated whether test scores represent students' maximum level of effort, prompting research into whether student-level financial incentives can improve test scores. If cash incentives are shown to improve students' test performance, there can be questions as to whether test scores obtained in the absence of financial…

Concerns about the negative effects of digitalization on students' reading comprehension, empirically backed by recent meta-analyses, question the efficacy of digital tools in the language arts classroom. By analyzing data from 4 and 8th grade US students from NAEP 2017, we aimed to test the generalization of the negative association between…

High stakes test-based accountability systems primarily rely on aggregates and derivatives of scores from tests that were originally developed to measure individual student proficiency in subject areas such as math, reading/language arts, and now English language proficiency. Current validity models do not explicitly address this use of aggregate…

Despite increases in the high school graduation rate in the United States, large disparities persist for English learners (ELs). These disparities are particularly important given that ELs are the fastest growing segment of the United States public school population. EL youth, though, are not a homogeneous population. Instead, EL youth speak many…