The problem under study was that administrators were challenged to support ELL teachers because current instructional strategies did not address the gap between the academic achievement of ELLs and non-ELLs. A basic qualitative design was used to investigate how administrators supported teachers' implementation of instructional strategies for this…

Research has shown that mathematical proficiency gaps are related to students' and schools' indicators of poverty, with fewer studies on neighborhood effects on achievement gaps. Although this literature has accounted for students' nesting within schools, so far, methodological constraints have not allowed researchers to formally account for…

Background: Socioeconomic characteristics are persistently and systematically related to academic outcomes, despite long-standing efforts to reduce educational inequality. Ireland has a strong policy focus on alleviating educational disadvantage and has seen significant improvements in mathematics and science performance in recent years. This…

An early elementary school in the Midwest, some economically disadvantaged students perform below grade level in math achievement. The blended learning model (BLM) is utilized within the district, however, there is a lack of data to support its effectiveness with underachieving, economically disadvantaged students. The purpose of this sequential…

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,…

Literacy is an important foundation skill which is central to success in any learning area. The existence of gender differences in literacy is therefore of major concern and has spurred a large amount of research. In spite of the extant literature regarding boys' language literacy underachievement, the topic has not yet become outdated. Gender…

Background: Students vary in their initial achievement when they enter school and their rate of academic growth as they move through school. These differences have implications for classroom instruction and educational policy. Although previous research has examined initial achievement and growth differences, a gap remains in understanding how…

Each year economically disadvantaged students fall further behind in the achievement and opportunity gap. Studies show that ethnically diverse students do not enter school with social skills supporting success in traditional school settings (Jagers et al., 2019). One approach to solving this problem is incorporating cultural background knowledge…

This study examined the efficacy of an afternoon and weekend academic program called the "Community School Initiative" (CSI) during the COVID-19 pandemic. CSI was offered to racialized students and families from the Jane and Finch community in Toronto which is one of the most under-resourced neighbourhoods in Canada. It involved a…

Despite the importance placed on reading in the classroom, an unacceptable number of students lack the literacy skills essential to succeed in today's knowledge-based economy, putting them at greater risk of persistent unemployment and other forms of economic hardship. The problem is that public charter elementary (K-4) school intervention…

Although research related to the Science of Reading has documented the positive effects of explicit, systematic reading instruction for all students, students from historically marginalized groups often experience differential opportunities to learn and are likely to perform lower than their peers on large scale measures of reading achievement.…

The School Improvement Grant (SIG), initially authorized in 1965 under the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, was passed to substantially support disadvantaged students' needs to raise students' achievement in their lowest-performing schools. This research addresses whether SIG funding alone is the catalyst to…

Australian children from regional, rural and remote (RRR) areas exhibit lower educational outcomes than their peers in metropolitan areas. The mechanisms driving the comparatively poorer educational outcomes of children in RRR areas, however, are not well understood. This paper proposes and tests two sets of factors that may be responsible for…

This study explored K-4 teachers and school district curriculum leadership's understanding of and inclination to implement culturally relevant pedagogy as a framework for teaching reading, especially for African American students. This qualitative study sought the potential basis that teachers and educational leaders retain from their experiences…

Although Montessori is the most common unconventional education model, no multi-state study has compared standardized test proficiency of Montessori schools with districts. Here we report on this for the 10 states/regions with the most public Montessori schools (n = 195). In 3rd grade, Montessori schools were less proficient in math but more…