The quantitative study contained herein was conducted to determine if there is a relationship between antibias education (ABE) and student performance on state standardized tests in a South Florida school district. In many districts, raising test scores has become priority with some schools even changing their curriculum so that teachers teach…

This study asks how government accountability reports are used to influence public education policy. Government accountability reports, called "audits" in Utah, prove to be useful tools for examining education policy. Using a collective case study design examining Utah's Class Size Reduction (CSR) policy, government accountability…

This dissertation is comprised of three separate yet related papers focused on Connecticut's new beginning teacher induction program: the Teacher Education and Mentoring (TEAM) program. The study uses data collected from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with twenty two participants including program leaders at the Connecticut State Department…

The National High School Center has created a college and career development organizer to synthesize and organize an increasingly complicated and crowded field of college and career readiness initiatives. The organizer, composed of three strands, can be used to map the efforts of state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs)…

The Obama administration's Race to the Top competitive grant program initiated an unprecedented wave of state teacher-evaluation reform across the country. To date, most of the scholarly analysis of this activity has focused on the design of the evaluation instruments or the implementation of the new evaluations by districts and schools. But…

Education data are growing in quantity, quality, and value. When appropriately used to guide action, data can be a powerful tool for improving school operations, teaching, and learning. Education stakeholders who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to appropriately access, analyze, and interpret data will be able to use data to take…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how US school leaders make sense of external mandates, and the way in which their understanding of state and district accountability policies affects their work. It is posited that school leaders' responses to external accountability are likely to reflect a complex interaction between their…

Response to intervention (RTI) is a major current issue at the intersection of general and special education, with the school psychologists in their usual central position. The literature is replete with scholarly and practical sources on RTI, but the legal sources are limited. A few articles provide systematic coverage of the relevant provisions…

This documentation is for the provisional version 1a file of the National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) for school year (SY) 2013-14, fiscal year 2014 (FY 14) conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) . It contains a brief description of the data collection, along with information required to understand and…

The "2014 Comprehensive Biennial Report on Texas Public Schools" describes the status of Texas public education, as required by §39.332 of the Texas Education Code. The report contains 15 chapters on the following topics: (1) state progress on academic performance indicators; (2) student performance on state assessments; (3) performance…

New Jersey is preparing to implement a statewide educator evaluation system in the 2013-14 school year. As part of this process, an Evaluation Pilot Advisory Committee (EPAC) was convened in September 2011. The EPAC consisted of 22 appointed members from various stakeholder groups. Its charge was to make recommendations to the New Jersey…

With strong connection to schoolwide policy and vision and to the realities of the daily life of teachers and students, the department chair is uniquely positioned to play an important role in advancing instructional effectiveness (Printy, 2008; Weller, 2001). This article provides an in-depth look at the efforts of three urban comprehensive high…

This workbook guides a team in reviewing, revising, or replacing an existing professional learning system. The process outlined and the tools included support the team in conducting all aspects of its work, usually done over several months, with continuous progress monitoring and input from research, experts, and constituents. The workbook is…

This quantitative, causal-comparative study examined the reading achievement of third grade students to ascertain the reading health of elementary students as measured through South Carolina's standardized assessment, the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards (PASS). The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference…

This study examines two state-supported formative assessment initiatives that promote a consensus definition of formative assessment endorsed by the Council of Chief State School Officers. It describes the primary components of the two initiatives and the strategies that state, district, and school leaders report using to support implementation of…