This paper presents research that examined teacher talk about moderation of English, mathematics and science assessment across Years 4, 6 and 8 as part of a broader inquiry into the use of scaled exemplars to support consistency of teacher judgement. The paper draws on Dorothy E Smith's sociological work, including the process of mapping textual…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to provide school district leaders and policymakers information of the impact grade configuration had on academic performance using math and ELA ILEARN scores over a three-year period. The study included data from 585 schools that were classified into four groups: Elementary Setting, Intermediate Setting,…

The purpose of this ex-post facto quantitative study was to compare English Language Arts (ELA) and math Tennessee Compressive Assessment Program (TCAP) scores of students in grades four through eight who attended school virtually or in-person during the 2020-2021 school year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the school district in this study allowed…

In test equating, one critical equating property is the group invariance property which indicates that the equating function used to convert performance on each alternate form to the reporting scale should be the same for various subgroups. To mitigate the impact of disrupted learning on the item parameters during the COVID-19 pandemic, a…

The purpose of the current research study was to investigate the extent to which student performance was influenced by the disruption to learning that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To explain observed differences in performance, we compared outcomes from a state-wide summative testing program between students who were administered the…

This study aimed to examine the evolution of test anxiety during the transition to secondary school, a challenging period that includes a set of contextual factors that could potentially increase students' test anxiety. In addition, to further understand the contribution of different individual factors that might increase the susceptibility to…

This study used a novel approach to examine the link between gender ability stereotype endorsement and academic interests by examining not only stereotypes people hold "within" the domains of mathematics and language arts, but also "between" them. Grade 6 and 8 students (285 males, 363 females) reported their degree of…

Scaffolding ensures multilingual learners (ML) are adequately challenged and supported at school while learning English and subject area content. Due to the dynamic nature of language development, teachers may struggle to anticipate how to adequately scaffold lessons or reflect on their practice to identify areas for improvement. This paper…

This document describes the model used to measure student growth for institutional accountability in New York State for the 2018/19 school year and how three years of student growth results were combined to generate a three-year growth measure called the Growth Index. The Growth Index was first used in 2017/18 to make accountability…

The purpose of this research study was to determine if there was an academic achievement gap between third through eighth-grade students in Title I and Non-Title I schools in the academic content areas of English Language Arts and Mathematics. The study focused on the following subgroup: economically disadvantaged students. The data was gathered…

This document describes the model used to measure student growth for institutional accountability in New York State for the 2017/18 school year and how three years of student growth results were combined to generate a three-year growth measure called the Growth Index. The Growth Index is new in 2017/18 and is used to make accountability…

We examine access to effective teachers for low-income students in 26 geographically dispersed school districts over a 5-year period. We measure teacher effectiveness using a value-added model that accounts for measurement error in prior test scores and peer effects. Differences between the average value added of teachers of high- and low-income…

Using two states' grades 3 through 8 state assessment databases, this study documents the extent to which students were assigned testing accommodations for ELA or mathematics in only one of two consecutive years. The percentage of students with disabilities who were assigned accommodations in the current year only or in the prior year only in a…

In November 2014, the New York City Department of Education classified 94 low-performing schools as "renewal schools." New York's Renewal School Program (RSP), announced Mayor Bill de Blasio at the program's launch, represented a big change to the city's education policy: whereas former mayor Michael Bloomberg favored closing failing…

In the first systematic study of gender achievement gaps in U.S. school districts, we estimate male-female test score gaps in math and English Language Arts (ELA) for nearly 10,000 school districts in the U.S. We use state accountability test data from third through eighth grade students in the 2008-09 through 2014-15 school years. The average…