This research study was conducted to gain a better understanding of teacher perceptions, in both low-performing and high-performing urban charter schools, of the impact of administrative support, professional development, and teacher preparation in closing the achievement gap among fourth grade students. The trend over the last five years among…

This qualitative research study sought to understand the affordances and limitations of a systemic functional linguistics (SFL) approach to teaching composition at the community college level. The study took place over the course of a semester in two developmental college composition classes using the language of SFL to teach writing through…

Although Montessori is the most common unconventional education model, no multi-state study has compared standardized test proficiency of Montessori schools with districts. Here we report on this for the 10 states/regions with the most public Montessori schools (n = 195). In 3rd grade, Montessori schools were less proficient in math but more…

This is the technical index for the research brief "Education's Long COVID: 2022-23 Achievement Data Reveal Stalled Progress toward Pandemic Recovery." Using data from 6.7 million U.S. public school students currently in grades 3-8, the study examined academic gains in the 2022-23 school year relative to pre-pandemic years. It also…

Socioeconomic disparities in early language are widespread and have long-lasting effects. The aim of this study is to investigate when social gaps in language problems arise and how they change across the first years of schooling. We address this question in two large longitudinal Norwegian datasets: the Behavior Outlook Norwegian Developmental…

The educational disparities that can be found in the English language learning outcomes of middle school students in Austria have gone relatively unexplored in international research. National studies have tended to attribute lower educational outcomes either to students' socioeconomic status or their multilingual background. In this article, we…

Could the standardisation of language narrow disparities in achievement in education amongst people of different social class, and within and across ethnicities and genders, and could this have implications for injustices and inequities in wider society? In analysing socio-economic diversity through the lens of its correlation with language, this…

Increasingly, obtaining a job that pays family-sustaining wages means getting a college degree or other postsecondary credential. However, according to the 2021 U.S. Census, only 31.5 percent of Texans ages 25 and older have a bachelor's degree or higher. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB)--the highest authority in the state…

Derrick Bell's thesis, that racism is a permanent feature of society, is frequently misrepresented by detractors as signaling a view of racism as monolithic--bold, obvious, and unchanging. This paper argues that critical race theory [CRT] reveals a very different understanding of racism as relentless, yet fluid, and quick to morph depending on…

International assessments of mathematics have shown persistent and widely intensified socioeconomic inequalities in achievement worldwide over the last decades. Such achievement gaps may partly be due to the differences in students' personal and family characteristics. They may also be attributed to the schooling itself if school systems provide…

The achievement gap has been identified as a significant challenge faced by school districts across the nation and has been an item on the national agenda for quite some time. Students that are part of the identified disaggregated groups are not achieving at the same rate as their White and Asian counterparts. While urban schools have had to deal…

In today's economy, preparation for career or college is essential. Yet too few students graduate with the knowledge or skills to directly enter college or a career. The time students spend in on-the-job training or catching up in remedial courses cost students and their families more both in time and money. Many of these students are caught off…

Assistant principals play a critical role in the success of any school. As the role of assistant principals has shifted from disciplinarian and task manager to instructional leader, it is important for principals to provide shared leadership opportunities to their administrative team. This qualitative study investigated principal practices of…

This work builds upon the work of the Postsecondary Value Commission (PVC), a group founded in 2019 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Consisting of 30 leaders in higher education, including AASCU's former president Mildred García who served as co-chair, the PVC came together to answer the question "what is college worth?" by…

Black boys in grades third through fifth are not developing reading comprehension skills compared to their peers in an urban southeastern school district. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore perceptions of third through fifth grade reading teachers on reading comprehension of Black boys in this district. The conceptual…