This document is written primarily for policy makers and state department of education staff who are considering through-year assessments, as well as consultants and contractors state departments rely on. The document identifies essential things to consider when designing or evaluating a through-year assessment program. The paper is organized into…

LXD Research was engaged by 95 Percent Group to conduct a third-party, mixed-methods efficacy study of their 95 Phonics Core Program (95 PCP) to evaluate the impact on fourth and fifth grade literacy outcomes over the school year 2023-2024. LXD analyzed the formative assessment data from i-Ready, focusing on overall scale scores, subdomains, and…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers states increased flexibility in how they identify, rank, label, and support underperforming schools. Initial reviews of state ESSA plans, however, suggest that identification and labeling policies have remained relatively unchanged. In this study, we analyze all state ESSA plans to systematically…

The purpose of Project LISTO is to support the instructional capacity of science educators and to validate innovative practices and strategies via previously developed interventions that address literacy-infused science and technology integration with standards-aligned curriculum. The evaluation of LISTO involved a multisite cluster randomized…

This quantitative study explored how well the "Big Ideas Math (BIM)" curriculum helped third-grade students in Title I schools within the Polston School District (pseudonym) improve their math skills and high-stakes testing scores. Thirteen elementary schools were selected based on factors such as diversity, poverty rates, and academic…

In 2018, the United States Congress passed the "Strengthening of Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act." This legislation included the requirement to conduct a comprehensive local needs assessment, which must include input from community stakeholders. This project designed and evaluated a three-step process that…

Despite marked growth in evaluation use and capacity in the U.S. Federal Government over the last 50 years, the levers that have driven institutional change have not previously been identified. This ethnographic study mapped the process and factors that have led to the diffusion of value in evaluation in the U.S. Federal Government. Analyses of…

Service coordinators under Part C of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) help families navigate the early intervention (EI) system and ensure regular communication among team members so services are aligned with family priorities and recommended EI practices. To meet the demands of service coordination, personnel entering…

The authors offer a set of recommendations for the next Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization. They recommend changes to the assessment, accountability and Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA) as well as for a federally-supported research and evaluation…

Accountability mechanisms and processes have evolved with changes in statute. State Education Agency (SEA) accountability systems may exhibit characteristics of compliance- and/or improvement-focused systems in light of requirements under the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" (ESEA) and its reauthorizations under the…

This phenomenological study described the experiences of student military veterans in a community college with physical and psychological health needs. Each participant enrolled in the community college by utilizing the benefits of the post-9/11 GI Bill and transitioned from active duty to civilian life. More than 40,000 programs in the United…

The central obligation under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act is to provide each eligible student with a free appropriate public education (FAPE). In "Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District RE-1" (2017), the U.S. Supreme Court revised the prior substantive standard for determining FAPE that the court had developed in…

Teacher preparation programmes (TPPs) find many ways to shape the development of their teacher candidates while bridging the research to practice gap in university and school partnerships. Recently, accountability models built on high-stakes standardised student assessments (Value-Added Models [VAM]) have been mandated as a way to evaluate the…

This guide describes key steps for developing a well-thought-out plan for evaluating a State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP). The guide provides considerations for how to incorporate each step into an evaluation plan, as well as a series of worksheets that correspond to each step and can be used to facilitate the planning process. The guide,…

This brief provides a summary of Tier 3 or "promising" evidence of Istation's Early Reading program in improving K-3 student performance in reading and English language arts (ELA). This quasi-experimental study examined whether students who attended schools that piloted Istation's Early Reading program during the 2017-18 school year had…