Public schools have experienced an endless cycle of reform aiming to improve student achievement. Despite the time, funding, and resources that have been expended, most school reforms have not been successful at manifesting and sustaining meaningful change. New Jersey's latest attempt at school reform involved Regional Achievement Centers (RACs)…

Student mobility -- that is, students changing schools -- can be detrimental for the academic outcomes of mobile students. Students who change schools tend to experience lower test scores than their nonmobile peers, be at higher risk of getting retained a grade, and have higher drop-out rates. Student mobility may not only affect the academic…

Learner-centred education has become a global reform policy among Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines. This policy however raised critical issues in pedagogy as it placed learner-centred teaching in binary opposition with teacher-centred instruction, thus creating a simplistic dichotomy between good and bad teaching in the…

Schools often track students to classes based on ability. Proponents of tracking argue it is a low-cost tool to improve learning since instruction is more effective when students are more homogeneous, while opponents argue it exacerbates initial differences in opportunities without strong evidence of efficacy. In fact, little is known about the…

Through an ethnographic case study within one struggling Afrocentric public charter school in the Mid-Atlantic from 2009 to 2011, I show how broader neoliberal reforms and an incomplete attempt at Afrocentric education combined to redefine Blackness as poverty, danger, and failure through the co-optation of school-based practices. Using a Critical…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between principal attrition and academic factors in Georgia's high-needs rural schools. The research shows that principals have a significant impact on student outcomes, and principal attrition is a disruptive factor in schools. The findings from this study indicate a negative correlation…

The study focused on the impact of scheduling configurations on schools' middle-level social studies test performance levels and "barriers" affecting time allocated for social studies. Results of South Carolina's accountability assessment system's social studies seventh-grade performance levels in 117 schools, as well as a survey…

This study estimated the promotion power of public high schools in the District of Columbia. Promotion power is a measure of school effectiveness that distinguishes a school's contributions to student outcomes from the contributions of the background characteristics of the students it serves. Promotion power scores are distinct from status…

This Study Snapshot highlights key findings from a study that explores the promotion power of public high schools in the District of Columbia. Promotion power is a measure of school effectiveness that distinguishes a school's contributions to student outcomes from the contributions of the background characteristics of the students it serves.…

The "Using Promotion Power to Identify the Effectiveness of Public High Schools in the District of Columbia" study examined the promotion power of public high schools in the District of Columbia. This study examined public District of Columbia (DC) high schools' promotion power for three outcomes: meeting the College Board's college and…

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand administrator and teacher perceptions of their ability to effectively implement the use of mobile devices in a rapidly changing, high-stakes accountability environment at the middle-level in three purposefully selected middle schools in a public school district in the Midwest. Data for…

Purpose: In U.S. public schools, principals must implement reforms that require instructional leadership across subjects, though little is known about subject-specific supervision. Methods: Through interviews with 26 K-8 principals, we examine instructional leadership for science. Findings: Our findings showed that science supervision occurred…

If we wish to embed assessment for accountability within instruction, we need to better understand the relative contribution of different types of learner data to statistical models that predict scores and discrete achievement levels on assessments used for accountability purposes. The present work scales up and extends predictive models of math…

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) prepares an annual report on graduates and dropouts in Texas public secondary schools. This report includes state summaries of the annual dropout rate, longitudinal graduation and dropout rates, and state attrition rates. In addition to statewide statistics, the report provides historical information about dropout…

Democratic education focuses on developing students using democratic principles and processes in the classroom. In this study, we aim to understand how self-identified democratic educators practice democratic education in public-school classrooms. Nine participants, teachers in K12 schools, were interviewed for this qualitative study. In…