Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) has witnessed an increase in the number of English learner students in grades K-12 over recent years, with students coming from more diverse backgrounds in race/ethnicity, countries of origin, and native language. This requires more support from the district to meet diverse needs in terms of languages,…

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is a state-led consortium designed to create next-generation assessments that, compared to traditional K-12 assessments, more accurately measure student progress toward college and career readiness. The PARCC assessments are aligned to the Common Core State Standards…

This paper addresses the participation of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in mainstream schools. There are different benefits for ASD students to be educated in an inclusive environment (Gena, 2006; Whitaker, 2004). They challenge the school community by presenting difficulties in essential domains for school activities (Chamberlain,…

To better understand the role that ways of reasoning play in students' success on integer addition and subtraction problems, we examined the relationship between students' flexible use of ways of reasoning and their performance on integers open number sentences. Within groups of students in 3 participant groups--39 2nd and 4th graders who had…

We present results of an experimental study of an urban, museum-based science teacher PD programme. A total of 125 teachers and 1676 of their students in grades 4-8 were tested at the beginning and end of the school year in which the PD programme took place. Teachers and students were assessed on subject content knowledge and attitudes towards…

To measure the impact of fine arts instruction in HISD [Houston Independent School District] , the study compared the STAAR [State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness] performance, attendance, and disciplinary outcomes of fine arts students enrolled in Fine Arts Magnet schools (treatment group) with students enrolled in non-Fine Arts Magnet…

This in-brief technical report documents the results from two different analytic approaches for examining the reliability of the slope for easyCBM® reading measures in Grades K-8. Results varied by grade, assessment measure, and the analytic approach. Results patterns are discussed.

This study investigated the relation between the easyCBM Benchmark Assessments in both mathematics and reading and the Smarter Balanced assessment, widely adopted across the United States. Data for the study were obtained from a convenience sample of approximately 1,000 students per grade in grades 3-8 provided by two school districts in the…

Evidence that teachers' short-term instructional effects persist over time and predict substantial long-run impacts on students' lives provides much of the impetus for a wide range of educational reforms focused on identifying and responding to differences in teachers' value-added to student learning. However, relatively little research has…

The purpose of this study is to examine how the quality of teaching contributes to a sense of belonging and satisfaction, while considering students' personal and socioeconomic variables, in explaining the risk of dropping out of school. Two thousand, eight hundred and seventy 4th- to 9th-grade students from 105 classes in 18 schools participated…

To comply with Section 1111(e) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states are required to submit evidence associated with their assessment systems to the United States Department of Education (ED) for peer review. Thirty-eight states submitted evidence for their assessment…

This evaluation study provides information about the implementation and outcomes of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) program in West Virginia, from September 2015 through May 2016, in which 12,388 students participated overall. The report draws on information from online surveys of directors of thirty six 21st CCLC programs…

"Odyssey® Math" is a web-based program developed by Compass Learning® for mathematics instruction in grades K-8. The online program includes a mathematics curriculum and formative assessments designed to support differentiated and data-driven instruction. Based on assessment results, the program generates an individualized sequence of…

This technical report provides detailed information regarding the technical, statistical, and measurement attributes of the New York State Testing Program (NYSTP) for the Grades 3-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics 2017 Operational Tests. This report includes information about test content and test development, item (i.e., individual…

Pedagogical shifts favouring collaborative learning and findings of recent studies have raised concerns regarding the claim that gifted students prefer to learn alone. The purpose of this study was to further investigate if, when and how high ability learners want to work with or without others. The distributions of 416 high ability students (n =…