Not all children enter school with the same skill set. Teachers of young children know this. Despite this, schools prescribe curriculum and pacing guides as well as assessments that may fit only a subset of students' instructional levels. Teachers are left to determine the best way to meet the student and mandated requirements. Teachers from two…

This is a practitioner research study that examines what it takes to co-create school contexts that support strong school communities and instructional practices. This practitioner inquiry study took a case study approach and looked closely at the relationships cultivated between and among teachers and administrators grappling to advance students'…

A mixed-methods study was conducted to investigate Idaho's elementary school teachers' perceptions of the Idaho Evaluation Model as a motivator for teachers to improve their instructional practice, and to determine if teachers' experience level impacts these perceptions. The quantitative data was obtained from 157 Idaho kindergarten through…

Daily Behavior Report Cards (DBRCs) have proven effective across a vast array of behaviors and students by provide a rating system for school staff to report students' behavior progress. The current meta-analysis included eleven studies between 2007-2022, wherein participants ranged from preschool to sixth grade. The current study further…

Race and weight are two highly salient aspects of social identity across the lifespan. Both are important targets for intervention, but they are acknowledged or understood very differently as issues of bias and social justice. Racism is viewed as a problem and poorly addressed, and weight stigma is rarely noticed. Unlike other domains of…

As student achievement remains a critical discussion among federal policymakers, states, and local school districts, one response involves providing additional classroom support staff. To address deficits in mathematics education, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel (2008) urged the use of mathematics specialists (MS) to support teachers and…

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to follow three teachers from their university teacher preparation programs into their first 3 consecutive years of teaching to better understand their teacher's professional identities. One of the reasons they were invited to this study was because they were strong candidates in their student teaching.…

Reading nonfiction texts with understanding is important to school success, yet many students struggle to do so. This randomized controlled trial extends previous research by contrasting an earlier iteration of a comprehension tutoring program (Comp) against a variant with strategies for transferring learning (Comp+Transfer). Participants were 189…

This qualitative exploratory case study uses phenomenology to conduct an investigation of teacher collaboration and teacher empowerment within a Professional Learning Community (PLC) at a Title 1 elementary school. This study examined the experiences of five elementary and three administrators to learn about their perspectives on teacher…

This phenomenological study explores the personal and professional attributes of six elementary special education teachers who have taught in an urban school district for five or more years. The ongoing shortage of special education teachers and the increasing attrition rate have caused further analysis of the innate traits of long-serving special…

This inquiry takes a critical look at elementary school instruction to uncover forms of oppression in education including linguicism, nativism, neo-racism (cultural racism) and racism. The researcher-participant, a marginalized Chicano educator, employs critical autoethnography through the lens of Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) to…

Social-emotional learning (SEL) programs are a popular tool used in schools to increase children's competencies across multiple domains, including emotion knowledge and social interaction. Children with appropriate social-emotional skills tend to experience more positive peer relationships, fewer problem behaviors, and improvements in school…

This study examines the impacts of two AmeriCorps programs, Minnesota Reading Corps and Wisconsin Reading Corps, where AmeriCorps volunteers provide literacy tutoring to at-risk kindergarten through third-grade (K-3) students utilizing a response-to-intervention framework. This evaluation replicates a prior randomized controlled trial evaluation…

Reading nonfiction texts with understanding is important to school success, yet many students struggle to do so. This randomized controlled trial extends previous research by contrasting an earlier iteration of a comprehension tutoring program (Comp) against a variant with strategies for transferring learning (Comp+Transfer). Participants were 189…

Purpose: We examined whether diverse profiles of strengths and weaknesses would emerge when assessing different aspects of morphological awareness in first- through sixth-grade students using a recently developed standardized test, the Morphological Awareness Test for Reading and Spelling (MATRS; Apel et al., 2021). Method: Four thousand…