This dissertation examines the relationship between principal leadership behaviors and student achievement in middle schools in Illinois. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the relationship between teachers' perceptions of Transformational Leadership and Instructional Leadership principal behaviors and the growth of student…

With more than two decades of on-the-ground experience impacting 300,000 educators and 3 million students, NIET's success is grounded in research. The success of NIET's work is evident in the positive findings from evaluations of impact. In NIET's 2022-23 Research Summary, we summarize findings from five new studies and highlight selected findings…

This report uses data from the RAND Corporation's American Educator Panels to understand the state of infrastructure to support elementary social studies instruction during the 2021-2022 school year. The report is focused at the elementary (specifically, kindergarten through grade 5 [K-5]) level because the authors hypothesized that infrastructure…

This mixed-method study explored the culturally responsive practices of a midsized, Southern California school district that used Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (ELOP) state funding to implement a voluntary summer program accessible to TK--6 grade students district-wide. Qualitative data gathered from semistructured interviews with the…

Helping principals improve their leadership practices is a common use of federal funds and one way to improve instruction and student achievement. The study highlighted in this one page report sought to better understand the effectiveness of an intensive principal professional development program focused primarily on helping principals conduct…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational research was to examine the extent to which teachers' perceptions of their administrators' instructional leadership and academic press correlated with student achievement in 34 elementary schools in Maricopa County, Arizona. The theoretical foundations of the study were expectancy theory and…

Research shows that family involvement in learning activities at school improves students' academic performance and social cohesion. This study analyses the impact of involving families through interactive groups, dialogic literary gatherings and tutored library in a Mexican primary school in a highly underprivileged urban area, within the…

Roaring Falls Unified School District (a pseudonym), an urban New Jersey district near NYC, was challenged by K-8 Multilingual Language Learners (MLLs) who lagged significantly behind general education students in English Language Arts (ELA). The District had roughly 12,000 students, of whom 93.0% were Hispanic, 26.2% were MLLs, and 32.0% were…

Critics of standards-based reform often cite an accountability policy environment that disproportionately affects teachers compared with principals and district officials. We directly examine this disproportionality. In our three study states of Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky, we use survey analysis to understand how policy environments for district…

Critics of standards-based reform often cite an accountability policy environment that disproportionately affects teachers compared with principals and district officials. We directly examine this disproportionality. In our three study states of Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky, we use survey analysis to understand how policy environments for district…

Spending more time teaching science and social studies in K-3 can have at least four potential benefits: (1) Increased learning in these subjects is likely to improve students' reading comprehension in later grades; (2) Introducing students to science and social studies in the early grades is likely to better prepare them for learning those…

Ambitious federal goals for preparing students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields require coordinated efforts and supports for the country's science instructors. Increased attention to the needs of science instructors and the provision of supports to address those needs are particularly important in…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine how US school leaders and teachers make sense of multiple accountability policies, including the Common Core State Standards and teacher evaluation, and how this process relates to school priorities and classroom practice. Design/methodology/approach: This study uses a comparative case study…

Helping principals improve their leadership practices is a common use of federal funds and one way to improve instruction and student achievement. This study sought to better understand the effectiveness of an intensive principal professional development program focused primarily on helping principals conduct structured observations of teachers'…

The purpose of this study was to explore specific leadership practices of high school principals, as identified by teachers and principals, and these practices' relationship to student achievement in English language arts. The measurements used for student achievement in English language arts were the proficiency percentages on the 2016 New York…