The purpose of this study was to investigate secondary instrumental music education in rural Mississippi. This descriptive study investigated the experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions that rural instrumental music educators ("N" = 58) held about their schools, students, and communities. Furthermore, we examined how…

Skill sets have been identified as the abilities needed by an individual to perform a job or task. In this mixed methods study, an online survey was developed to collect data identifying those skill sets and the barriers to effective inclusion in rural schools in the Black Belt region of Alabama and Mississippi. For rural administrators, this…

This study explores the efficacy of using the Essential Skill Inventories (ESI) to increase high-quality instruction in the early learning years. Kindergarten and first- and second-grade teachers, who were identified as using the ESI with fidelity, assessed their own teaching skills and behaviors, reflecting on these before and after use of the…

By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. There are many and varying updates to these systems, and some of them have been made to meet conditions for a state's federal "Race to the Top" (RTT) grant. Other updates have been made to meet conditions for a state's…

By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. The systems include many and varying updates. In some cases, the updates were designed to meet conditions for a state's "Race to the Top" grant. In others, the updates were made to meet conditions for a state's waiver…

Since the 2003-04 school year, Save the Children, U.S. Programs, has supported programming designed to improve reading skills among struggling students in rural areas. The literacy program includes both afterschool and in-school interventions with small groups of children. These are implemented by well-trained paraprofessionals and are designed to…

By the year 2008, 2.2 million teachers will be needed to fill open teaching positions created by increasing student populations and the rapid rise of retiring teachers. The urgent need for qualified teachers looks to be overtaking the number of available qualified teachers. Despite the efforts of teacher training programs in nationally accredited…

This report describes Partners in Accomplished Teaching, a project of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) designed to help increase the number of teachers achieving National Board Certification. It focuses on efforts in St. Paul, Minnesota; Mississippi; North Carolina; and San Antonio, Texas. The St. Paul program is a…

The purpose of the study was to determine the effectiveness of Mississippi preservice vocational programs in developing the performance levels of vocational teachers. Questionnaires were mailed to all Mississippi vocational teachers with one to three years of teaching experience, State level supervisors, and teacher educators; 405 questionnaires…

This report provides data on the academic achievement gap that separates low-income and minority students from other students, examining how well different groups of students perform in Mississippi and noting inequities in teacher quality, course offerings, and funding. Included are tables and data that provide: a frontier gap analysis (a…

This document describes the mentoring relationship from the perspectives of several virtual schools that have built mentoring programs to assist their new teachers. Each school's mentoring program is unique and has been designed specifically for the school's staff, size, and instructional approach. These schools have learned that a successful…