Primary and secondary schools across the nation are becoming increasingly heterogeneous, yet the teacher population remains homogenous. In fairness, this is not a new issue: At the turn of the century, Whites represented a significant aggregate of the teacher population: 73% in the inner city; 81% in suburban schools; 91% in small towns; and 98%…

An estimated 44% of secondary school English Learners (ELs) are immigrants. Some arrive in the United States with a rigorous academic education and often excel beyond most native-born students while others arrive without any formal education or having missed years of schooling. This second subpopulation of ELs is called students with interrupted…

This research study investigated whether the effects of response to intervention impacted student achievement in a rural virtual high school, as well as sought to determine staff perceptions of the efficacy of the implementation of RTI within the school. The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative analysis to effectively answer the…

This dissertation explores the views and experiences of high school calculus teachers and college mathematics professors on the professional development which occurs at the annual national AP Calculus exam grading. This professional development experience comes in several forms: the exam briefing sessions, the actual reading of the exams, the…

The study examined the self-reported understandings of selected 3rd to 12th grade teachers had of assessment and the assessment practices they reported implementing in their classrooms along with evidence extracted from written lesson plans. The literature on classroom assessment supports the idea that teachers who create meaningful assessments,…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand how teachers experience a stance toward inquiry through participation in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). In order to meet this objective, the following questions framed this research: (1) How do individual teachers make meaning of the epistemological and dialogic aspects of…

The meatpacking industry has drawn an increasing number of immigrants to the Midwestern community of Washington River from Mexico and Central America, making it a New Latino Diaspora (NLD) receiving community. Demographic change amidst the sociopolitical landscape of neoliberalism, declining civic engagement, and polarized partisan politics has…

On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay. These indicators involved group performance for teachers based on campus second grade comparative growth in mathematics and reading…

On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay, using value-added methodology. For 2015-2016, HISD did not renew its contract with SAS EVAAS®. The amended model replaced EVAAS® with…

Purpose: Findings from a multi-year project entitled, Teachers Working Together to develop and implement culturally and linguistically responsive practices (TWT-CLRP) conducted at a large urban 6-12 school that predominantly served Latino emerging bilingual learners will be shared. All teachers shifted practices and adopted an ethos that all…

How working conditions, personal characteristics, and school factors influence teacher recruitment and retention is an oft-studied topic in the field of education finance and policy. Through decades of research, it has become increasingly clear that teachers respond to a set of monetary and non-monetary factors when making decisions in the teacher…

In 2014, The Urban Education Collaborative at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte hosted its first biennial International Conference on Urban Education (ICUE) in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In 2016, the second hosting of the conference took place in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Additionally, in 2018, the third hosting of the conference took place in…

As one of the world's fastest-growing economies, Bangladesh aims to become a middle-income country by 2021 and a high-income country by 2041. To attain these goals, the country must face global challenges head on by strengthening existing industries and preparing itself for industries that have yet to emerge. To do this, it must tap the full…

This study explores in-service elementary and secondary science teachers' conceptions of the Nature of Scientific Inquiry and the influence of participation in two different Research Experience for Teacher (RET) programs had on these conceptions. Participant teachers attended one of two six week RET programs in which they worked with scientists to…

Given the powerful influence of past school experiences on the ways in which future teachers decide to teach, it is important to help preservice teachers more deliberately and critically explore the implications of those influences. This study grew out of an assignment in which 38 secondary education majors were asked to describe high school…