The Tennessee Department of Education's office of coordinated school health (CSH) works with every school district in the state to address all aspects of student health, with a special emphasis on reducing Tennessee's childhood obesity rates. Encouraging adequate physical activity and providing physical education for all students are the central…

Despite the known dangers of pregnancy smoking, rates remain high, especially in the rural, Southern United States. Interventions are effective, but few have been developed and tested in regions with high rates of pregnancy smoking, a culture that normalizes smoking, and a hard-to-reach prenatal population. The goals were to describe a smoking…

Experimental and quasi-experimental designs are used in educational research to establish causality and develop effective practices. These research designs rely on a counterfactual model that, in simple form, calls for a comparison between a treatment group and a control group. Developers of educational practices often assume that the population…

The purpose of this study was threefold: (a) to examine the academic progress of students in reading, who have a learning disability in reading, as they transfer from pull-out support services to inclusion services; and (b) to examine the academic progress of general education students in reading, as they transfer from a general education setting…

MemphiSTEP is a five-year STEM Talent Expansion Program (STEP) at the University of Memphis sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The project focuses on retention and persistence to graduation to increase the number of STEM majors and graduates. The project includes a range of student retention programs, including a Summer Mathematics…

Almost half of Tennessee's students are not on grade level in reading and math by the time they complete third grade, and very few of those students achieve proficiency in later grades. To combat this trend and support the skill development and academic achievement of all students, Tennessee has adopted a framework for addressing individual…

In Fall 2010, the Niswonger Foundation received a five-year validation grant from the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) to create the Northeast Tennessee College and Career Ready Consortium of 29 high schools and five colleges. This report evaluates the Consortium's impact on student outcomes during each of the four years of program…

The purpose of this study was to determine if a difference in achievement scores exist between students who attended the Johnson County School System preschool program and those who did not as measured by standardized TCAP achievement test Reading/Language Arts and Math scores of students in the third and fourth grades. The variables of grade…

This study focused on the association between 3 school-level supports for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students and teachers' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward LGBT youth. Framed within social support theory, the study used survey method with a sample of 98 teachers in Grades 6-12. The purpose was to examine the relation…

"Odyssey® Math" is a web-based program developed by Compass Learning® for mathematics instruction in grades K-8. The online program includes a mathematics curriculum and formative assessments designed to support differentiated and data-driven instruction. Based on assessment results, the program generates an individualized sequence of…

Students with deficits in social skills have been found to experience both short- and long-term problems, including interpersonal conflicts and academic difficulties. These problems are compounded for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Class-wide function-related intervention teams (CW-FIT), a multi-tiered classroom management…

This report provides a non-technical overview of the guiding research questions and research design for the ACT-led core research program conducted on behalf of the GEAR UP College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium (CCREC). The core research program is a longitudinal study of the effectiveness of 14 GEAR UP state grants on the academic…

This study includes a randomized control experiment, but that component could only be implemented in a limited number of schools with more applicants than seats in the pre-k program. Informative as that component is about the effects of Tennessee Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten (TN-VPK), the participating schools do not provide a representative sample…

The well known 1983 report "A Nation at Risk" recommended that individuals preparing to teach should meet high education standards and demonstrate an aptitude for teaching and competence in an academic discipline--adding also that college and university teacher preparation programs should be judged by how well their graduates meet these…

Every Classroom, Every Day (ECED) is a set of instructional improvement interventions designed to increase student achievement in math and English/language arts (ELA). ECED includes three primary components: (a) systematic classroom observations by school leaders, (b) intensive professional development and support for math teachers and…