The current study was a retrospective mixed-methods quasi-experimental design (QED) study to determine the effects of Progress Learning on Grades 6-8 mathematics and ELA achievement by comparison growth on the Georgia Milestones Mathematics and ELA assessments of students who received Progress Learning services, in relation to students that did…

Creating Habits That Accelerate the Academic Language of Students (CHAAOS) is a vocabulary intervention developed by O'Connor et al. to improve the academic vocabulary of middle school students with disabilities. This study was designed as a replication of O'Connor et al.'s study; CHAAOS lessons were taught to 33 sixth graders who received special…

Newsela contracted with LearnPlatform by Instructure (LearnPlatform), a third-party edtech research company, to examine the relationship between Newsela ELA usage and outcomes for students. LearnPlatform designed the study to satisfy Level II requirements (Moderate Evidence) according to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The study included…

A pretest-training-posttest design assessed whether training to improve spatial skills also improved mathematics performance in elementary-aged children. First grade students (mean age = 7 years, n = 134) and sixth grade students (mean age = 12 years, n = 124) completed training in 1 of 2 spatial skills--spatial visualization or form…

At-risk students' participation in after-school programming is one-way schools are responding to the lagging literacy scores in the U.S. This program evaluation attempted to inform after-school program stakeholders by examining the relationship between participants' attendance in a 21st Century Community Learning Center after-school program…

A pretest-training-posttest design assessed whether training to improve spatial skills also improved mathematics performance in elementary-aged children. First grade students (mean age = 7 years, n = 134) and sixth grade students (mean age = 12 years, n = 124) completed training in 1 of 2 spatial skills-spatial visualization or form…

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…

Catching students up who have fallen behind academically is a key challenge for educators, and can be difficult to do in a cost-effective manner. This field experiment examines the causal effect of a program designed to provide struggling sixth and seventh graders with math instruction delivered in small groups of roughly ten students by select…

The purpose of this study was to understand how a school-based personalized learning approach can help improve literacy achievement among middle grades students in a rural area. This study followed two cohorts of schools serving students in grades 6-8 in northeast Tennessee for one year each (2018-19 and 2021-22), to assess student and school…

Adolescents with disabilities have great difficulty with academic content in middle school, and their teachers have difficulty teaching them to understand and use academic language. We taught teachers of 6th grade students with Learning Disabilities, over half of whom were also English Language Learners (ELL), to implement about 15 minutes of…

Despite prolific access to technology within America's K-12 systems, more research regarding how investments in educational technology affect student outcomes is warranted. A growing body of research has looked at changes in student achievement due to educational technology access. However, often student access within these studies is not well…

This executive summary report includes results for Austin Partners in Education (APIE) programs in 2019-2020 including math classroom coaching, GEAR UP tutoring, college readiness, and mentoring. It highlights continued academic programs serving students in middle and high school and describes APIE support provided to teachers' instruction. As…

Students classified as English learners (EL) are a protected class of students with core legal rights. There are clear opportunities to strengthen education policies and practices to improve opportunities and outcomes for EL-classified students. This dissertation is comprised of three studies examining key issues in EL education with the goal of…

This is an executive summary of a full report that includes results for Austin Partners in Education (APIE) programs in 2018-2019 including math classroom coaching, GEAR UP tutoring, college readiness, and mentoring. It highlights continued academic support programs serving students in 8th grade math classroom coaching and 12th grade college…

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…