Because high-stakes testing for school accountability does not begin until third grade, accountability ratings for elementary schools do not directly measure students' academic progress in grades K through 2. While it is possible that children's test scores in grades 3 and above are highly correlated with children's outcomes in the untested…

As teachers and building leaders work to help increase student academic achievement, any strategy that will increase student achievement is worth exploring as an option for helping increase academic achievement. Bandura's theory of collective efficacy, in which individuals working together towards a common goal achieve more than if they were…

The Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach to education that aims to improve achievement for all students by improving a school's effectiveness at building relationships, leveraging real-time student data, and capitalizing on the strengths of each student. The U.S. Department of Education's…

The innovative-based economies such as Finland and other developed countries, offer a viable cohesive, and sustainable curriculum centralized around Project-Based Learning (PBL) and built on the Rigorous Curriculum Design (RCD). Such curriculum is developed by schools and warrants examination in developing countries such as the United Arab…

Air Tutors is an online tutoring organization that provides one-on-one and small group tutoring for K-12 students. Air Tutors uses live, online tutoring and an online platform that incorporates video conferencing and interactive whiteboards; recruits high-quality paid tutors with tutoring experience and engaging online personalities; and engages…

Creativity can be assessed using various methods, including divergent thinking performance, self-ratings, and teacher ratings. However, these measures may not always align, as they may not consistently identify creative potential in the same manner. The present study aimed to identify latent subgroups of students based on their observed…

Background: Over 15% of kindergarten and first grade students in U.S. public schools are English learners (ELs) (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2021). Many classroom teachers, however, have not had specialized training in providing instruction for ELs. The BELLA (Bridging English Language Learning and Academics) professional…

To assess education progress in the early grades and identify achievement gaps, this study examined reading achievement data for kindergarten and grade 1 students in two districts in Illinois: District U-46 (Elgin Area Schools) and District 186 (Springfield Public Schools). Drawing on a different reading assessment in each district, the study team…

To assess education progress in the early grades and identify achievement gaps, this study examined reading achievement data for kindergarten and grade 1 students in two districts in Illinois: District U-46 (Elgin Area Schools) and District 186 (Springfield Public Schools). Drawing on a different reading assessment in each district, the study team…

This report presents findings about the Afterschool Intensive Strings Program in 2015-16, which provides instruction to students with limited access to music education. The evaluation examines how participation in the program affects students' academic achievement, non-academic skills, and musical skills and knowledge.

This mixed-methods explanatory study focused on analyzing the impact that National School Lunch Program eligibility had on (a) scholastic performance; (b) Appraisal of the Academic Influences Inventory results; and (c) the rates of absenteeism, tardiness, and disciplinary referrals within large groups of American Indian and White students in…

Every summer, the news is filled with stories about summer learning loss. The warnings sound dire: two months of math learning lost for most students every summer, and two to three months of reading learning lost for low-income students, according to the National Summer Learning Association. By the ninth grade, "summer learning loss during…

In this paper, we report results from a multisite, student-level randomized controlled trial that examined the impact of the Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model on ninth-grade students. The BARR model is a comprehensive, strength-based approach that uses eight interlocking strategies to build intentional staff-to-staff, staff-to-student,…

A rural Midwestern school district the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) adaptive assessment did not yield the expected improvements in student outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand teacher practice regarding MAP implementation. The conceptual framework was based on Fullan and Langworthy's change…

New research, using data from 7 million students in grades 3-8 in 25,000 schools who took MAP Growth reading and mathematics assessments between 2020-21 and fall 2022, continues NWEA's ongoing research agenda examining how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected student achievement in reading and math. At the start of the 2022-23 school year, we…