The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) is guiding and supporting the implementation of a new Teacher and Principal Evaluation (TPE) system in all school districts throughout the state. The system includes measures of both professional practice and student growth. Because the historical and current practice in Maryland is one of local…

Student debt has increasingly become an important topic in higher education. Many students, particularly low-income and first-generation college students, do not have a solid understanding of managing personal finances. This becomes further compounded upon entering college, as these students lack the financial acumen to understand the long-term…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of university-level research scientists toward educational and outreach activities that aim to help the general public understand more about their scientific endeavors. Interviews, observations, and survey results from 12 university research scientists, their colleagues, students, and the…

Students with an insufficient amount of time to study are becoming more prevalent in the general college population as many who enroll in college have competing responsibilities (full-time jobs, childcare, etc.). Such students are likely to choose study resources that they consider to be both effective and efficient. Students at the U.S. Naval…

Increasingly, states and districts are combining student growth measures with rigorous, rubric-aligned teacher observations in constructing teacher evaluation measures. Although the student growth or value-added components of these measures have received much research and policy attention, the results of this study suggest that the data generated…

A research and development project was undertaken to document, analyze and report the effects of implementing a free/open educational resources (OER) initiative within Sullivan University's College of Business Administration. The project involved the redesign of courses using no-cost textbooks and other educational resources, in place of resources…

As part of the 2001 No Child Left Behind federal statute, U.S. lawmakers reduced the amount of time that teachers could spend on social studies instruction in favor of devoting more instructional time to other core content areas. The Middle Years Program (MYP) is present in many local middle schools in Maryland, where MYP teachers spend equal…

School choice is increasingly the new normal in urban education. But in cities with multiple public school options, how can civic leaders create a choice system that works for all families, whether they choose a charter or district public school? To answer this question, the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) researchers surveyed 4,000…

Using surveys, interviews, and a rubric-based assessment of student research essays, the St. Mary's College of Maryland Assessment in Action team investigated the relationship between faculty-librarian collaboration in a First Year Seminar (FYS) course and students' demonstrated information literacy (IL) abilities. In gathering information on the…

This article provides evidence and generates insights about the power of financial rewards to motivate school administrators and the design features that influence their motivational potency. The multi-year mixed-methods study is grounded in expectancy and goal setting theories that suggest (a) awards must be salient and sizable enough to appeal…

The MCPS Office of Shared Accountability conducted an evaluation of the "High School Plus" (HS+) program implemented in Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS). HS+ is one of the intervention programs offered by MCPS to provide additional ways of earning high school credits for students who have failed courses required for…

This mixed methods study examines perspectives on failure in the classroom by elementary teachers new to teaching engineering. The study participants included 254 teachers in third, fourth, and fifth grade who responded to survey questions about failure, as well as a subset of 38 of those teachers who participated in interviews about failure. The…

In this article, we present a case study of a course called Women in Mathematics. Students in the course studied the lives and the mathematical contributions of women mathematicians throughout history, as well as current gender equity issues in the study of mathematics and in mathematical careers. They also mentored 20 middle school girls…

This article describes a comprehensive strategy for developing a larger corps of effective principals, "The Principal Pipeline Initiative," launched by the Wallace Foundation in 2011. Its purpose is working to strengthen school leadership by documenting and evaluating leadership development in six urban districts (Charlotte-Mecklenburg…

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation has partnered with Baltimore Education Research Consortium (BERC) to complete a series of reports examining the implementation and impact of the Baltimore Elementary and Middle School Library Project (Library Project). This report on the first year of the project examines the experiences of the…