Background: Charter schools are one of the most recent attempts at improving the educational outcomes for low-income and minority students. These schools were created with the intent of being innovative, individualized, and allowing parents choice about the type of education their child received. This intention has not been fully realized, instead…

This three-article dissertation explores educational innovation in charter schools. A common frame of reference for each article is the consideration of the influence of Dr. Benjamin Bloom's 2 sigma problem--the observation that one-on-one tutoring, though often cost prohibitively expensive, produces outcomes two standard deviations higher than…

This dissertation examined the strategic initiative for identifying the essential components for personalized learning projects (PLP) for implementation. This school initiative identified the individual traits of a PLP from current literature and current instructional pedagogy and then surveyed secondary aged students. The project led to…

Many arts educators in Pennsylvania public charter schools do not teach executive functioning (EF) skills to students with learning disabilities (LDs) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The purpose of this study was to investigate how these art teachers describe their own EF instructional practices and what support they need to…

Educators in a rural charter middle school in the United States were challenged with the reliable assessment of student thinking skills even though the development of higher order thinking was an espoused goal for the school. The purpose of this study was to validate a new rubric based on Bloom's Revised Taxonomy (BRT) to reliably assess student…

Preparing students to be successful in their high school begins with their freshmen orientation program. Incoming Charter School of Wilmington (CSW) freshmen struggle to adjust to the demands of the curricula, learn the various technologies, establish new social relationships and navigate around their new school building. The CSW Freshmen…

In 1995, Texas created its first charter schools, which consisted of open enrollment schools of choice, as part of education initiative/reform. However, low graduation rates among public schools in the state persisted. The purpose of this study was to explore factors that might contribute to students who received vouchers to attend private or…

The purpose of this qualitative, narrative-inquiry research study was to examine the perceptions and implementation of the Response to Intervention (RTI) process among elementary teachers who taught at a charter school in the southern area of Dallas, TX. In the qualitative research study, educators were provided an opportunity to voice their…

The purpose of this study was to examine the factors associated with academic achievement in at-risk high school students attending one of four charter schools in south Florida geared toward dropout prevention. Several factors were identified through a thorough review of the literature to identify the common demographic variables associated with…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools in California were forced to shut their doors to students and staff during spring semester 2020. The school closures forced teachers to migrate their lessons to online platforms and forced students to learn using various online modalities. Students no longer had the traditional access to their teachers,…

The recent push for college readiness meant to address inequities in college access and degree attainment created charter school reforms claiming to ensure students are college ready. Yet, despite reforms and a push for college readiness across the K-12 system, there has been little change in college degree completion. Research attempting to…

The opportunity gap continues to widen in the U.S. education setting due to the ever-growing diversification of student populations resulting in part from increasing numbers of BIPOC students in schools. Meanwhile, most educators continue to be White middle-class females. In this study, fourth- and fifth-grade students at a K-8 charter school were…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted traditional K-12 education worldwide, forcing a rapid shift to emergency remote teaching and learning. This dissertation utilizes a three-article approach and investigates the multifaceted impact of the pandemic on urban charter high school students and their principals in under-resourced communities. The first…

Educational technology is evolving and growing at a faster pace than ever before. Such fast-paced growth makes it difficult to evaluate and measure its effectiveness in a timely manner and creates a need for independent academic literature in this area. This study serves to address to this need and contribute to the body of literature. The intent…

Technology is necessary for students to become digitized citizens in an information-driven society. Digital literacy skills and 21st Century Skills (collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity) were also needed to ensure success in the digital world. This research project explored a school with a predominantly African American…