This quantitative research examined the effect of the implementation of project-based learning and assessment on the standardized test scores of high school students. Data were collected through a quantitative approach using standardized test scores for ninth-grade students taking the end-of-course World History and Geography to 1500 A.D. (C.E.)…

Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin and his administration want to raise the bar for students to pass the state's standardized tests "from the lowest in the nation to the highest in the nation" by next spring. His goal is to close the "honesty gap" between the 79 percent of Virginia students who pass the state's tests and the 39…

Dropout is a global crisis and an affliction in the United States. This study analyzes graduation rates based on prior academic achievement, attendance, and behavior at an urban American high school in Virginia over 4 years to identify who is (not) graduating and why. Using a correlational, nonexperimental design, four cohorts of graduates were…

This study tested the authoritative school climate theory that schools characterized by high structure and student support have greater levels of student engagement and that these factors are associated with higher academic achievement, as indicated by school graduation rates and school performance on state-mandated testing. The model was tested…

The purpose of this study was to gauge the degree to which selected NWEA MAP Growth assessments are aligned to the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) and the extent to which MAP Growth reports can be used by school divisions to gauge student achievement relative to grade level and to identify learning gaps. The study was delimited to four MAP…

This study examined the relations between the schoolwide prevalence of teasing and bullying (PTB) and schoolwide academic performance in a sample of 271 Virginia middle schools. In addition, the study examined the mediating effects of student engagement. A three-step sequence of path models investigated associations between schoolwide PTB and…

The principal is ultimately responsible for decisions regarding the master schedule at the elementary level of education (Canady & Rettig, 2013; Young, 2008), and these scheduling decisions are influenced by multiple factors (Benamati, 2010; Harris, 2013; Howard & Rakoz, 2009). Although principals have become increasingly aware of the need…

Knowing what skills underlie college success can allow students, teachers, and universities to identify and to help at-risk students. One skill that may underlie success across a variety of subject areas is structure building, the ability to create mental representations of narratives (Gernsbacher, Varner, & Faust, 1990). We tested if…

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is committed to providing partners with useful tools to help make inferences from the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) interim assessment scores. Recently, NWEA completed a concordance study to connect the scales of the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) reading and math tests with those of the MAP…

The purpose of this research study was to ascertain whether there is a relationship between teachers' cognitive role taking aspect of empathy and the Virginia Standards of Learning (VSOL), English/Reading scores of their students. A correlational research design using hierarchical multiple regression was used to look for this relationship. In…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between secondary school principal's emotional intelligence quotient, school culture, and student achievement. Partial correlation was conducted to examine the degree of relationships between principal's emotional intelligence quotient and school culture controlling for the effect of…

Current National Assessment of Educational Progress results continued their 40-year pattern with two-thirds of U.S. 8th graders not proficient in reading, yet formal reading and literacy instruction ends in elementary school. Lack of reading proficiency can undermine academic progress in high school. Elementary literacy instruction provides…

Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,312) were analyzed to examine whether the adverse effects of early insensitive parenting on children's academic functioning can be offset by parents' later involvement in children's education. Observations of mothers' early…

During the author's travels all over the United States speaking to a wide variety of audiences, and his visits with leadership groups in the Middle East and Far East, he has encountered diverse audiences who share his concern that the majority of students are leaving high school without the skills that matter most--even in those school districts…

A number of high schools across the United States have moved to later bell times on the belief that their previous bell times were too early for the "biological clocks" of adolescents. In this article I study whether doing so improves academic performance. I first focus on the Twin Cities metropolitan area, where Minneapolis and several…