The academic achievement of Hispanic students is not increasing as much as the population is in schools across the United States. Although existing research explores the Hispanic achievement gap, none solely compares the relationship between Hispanic multilingual (ML) and Hispanic non-multilingual (non-ML) students. As the Hispanic population…

Retrieving information from memory can--under many circumstances--strengthen one's memory of the retrieved information itself. The strategic use of retrieval to enhance memory and help long-term retention is known as retrieval practice. However, it is unclear whether its effect also holds true in the case of learning mathematics. This research is…

The current study investigated the effects of school mobility on the academic achievement of different racial/ethnic groups in four cohorts of students from a very large urban school district. In this study, I compared within-year and between-year mobility and, most importantly, account for all the schools students attended over the study period.…

This study explores the impact of attending optional professional learning events on the critical consciousness development of Ready to Learn (RtL) mentors over the course of one program year. Ready to Learn is an out of school time math tutoring and mentoring program that seeks to address opportunity gaps in math learning for middle school…

In this paper we study the effect on the math gender gap from attending a coeducational school with single-sex classrooms versus attending a school with coeducational classrooms. That is, we compare the performance of girls versus boys within schools with single-sex classrooms compared to the performance of girls versus boys within schools with…

This study reports achievement levels and fall-to-spring gains in grades K to 8 for three groups of English Learners (ELs): (a) ever-ELs who were ever eligible for service; (b) current-ELs who continue to require service; and (b) dually-identified students eligible for both EL and Special Education services. I leverage unique data that include…

An achievement gap has persisted in elementary schools between Black and White students and Black students and Hispanic students in reading and math (NAEP, 2019). Nieto and Bode (2018) suggested that gaps in educational resources, learning opportunities, and educator expectations influence the achievement gap between Black students from low…

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) offers two primary bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs). EL students in the district's two main bilingual programs (Transitional and Dual Language) are instructed in both English and Spanish. The relative amount of instruction in each language depends on both program and…

English Learners (ELs) enrollment in the U.S. public schools continues to increase. ELs have various linguistic needs including listening, reading, speaking, and writing English. Often this group of students does not perform well academically on state assessments since these assessments are normally written in English and require substantial…

Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person…

One of the critical issues facing middle level educators is making sure we have the types of support in place for providing equitable learning environments for all students and helping them to feel that they belong in school. Literature suggests that a gender gap exists within middle level education today with respect to achievement scores and the…

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative research was to assess the effect of classroom structure (single-gender vs. coeducational) on students' performance in mathematics in grades 3 through 5 at three large, urban elementary schools in Las Vegas, Nevada, while controlling for student gender and ethnicity. This study was theoretically…

In response to the school accountability movement and the move toward market-oriented education policies in recent decades, many schools and districts have felt increased pressure to find effective ways to boost student achievement. However, many districts--largely those serving low income black and hispanic students in urban settings--have still…

This qualitative exploratory case study focused on the achievement gap in mathematics that exists in one urban North Carolina middle school and the strategies used by school personnel to narrow this gap. The goal of this research was to determine effective instructional strategies and best practices used to engage students in learning that will…

Against a backdrop of the broader conversation around the mathematical achievement disparities of urban, minority students, the author reviews salient literature pertaining to student engagement as a means of identifying effective mathematical practices in engaging traditionally marginalized groups of students in their study of mathematics. First,…