Due process hearings provide a formal resolution for disagreements that may arise within special education. The purpose of this study was to examine the types of issues that arise in due process cases for students with emotional disturbance (ED). The current study examined select due process hearings during 2014 to 2019 from four states for…

Lorenzo De Zavala is a low-income school in West Dallas, Texas, and a part of the large Dallas Independent School District. Reading achievement has been low and stagnant over the past few years at this campus due low reading levels in grades Kindergarten through 2nd grade. Additionally, there is a lack of adequate teacher development and…

This study investigates the relationship between mastery goal performance and achievement on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test. With policies like the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) placing increased importance on standardized-state assessments, schools are making efforts to improve scores, often by focusing…

Mastery learning -- the process by which students must demonstrate proficiency with a single topic before moving on -- is well recognized as one of the best ways to learn, yet many teachers struggle or remain unsure about how to implement it into a classroom setting. This study leverages two field experiments to test the efficacy of a program…

Heightened concerns about the health of the teaching profession highlight the importance of studying the early teacher pipeline. This exploratory, descriptive article examines preservice teachers' expressed motivation for pursuing a teaching career. Using data from a large teacher education program in Texas, we use a natural language processing…

This quantitative, ordinal logistic regression study aimed to explore the relationship between the implementation of personalized learning and special education students' progress measures on STAAR. Another purpose was to determine if teachers' perceptions of implementation, using Olofson's survey, can predict the growth on STAAR. The conceptual…

This article provides an in-depth examination of differentiation, instructional strategies that cater to all learners. Differentiation is beneficial when teachers can select content, process, and products that meet student's needs. While teachers incorporate differentiation to modify instruction with struggling students, gifted and talented…

Spelling instruction is often overlooked by many teachers during reading and language arts. The purpose of this study was to implement a manageable differentiated word study instruction curriculum, drawn from the "Words Their Way (WTW)" curriculum, to determine how it affected students' spelling accuracy and how the participants…

Talladega County Schools (TCBOE) spans 760 square miles and serves about 7,000 learners, 71 percent of whom receive free and reduced-priced meals. It also is a member of the League of Innovative Schools, a network of forward-looking school districts that have declared their commitment to improving and advancing equitable outcomes for students…

This qualitative descriptive study aims to explore how secondary teachers describe how the course influenced their teacher efficacy and how their teacher efficacy influenced student performance. There is a problem space in the literature on the effectiveness of technology-supported learning in transforming teachers' behaviors and practices. A…

This qualitative, phenomenological study examines how artificial intelligence (AI) impacts lesson design for teachers at a school district in southeast Texas. As generative AI becomes more integrated into education, this research investigates how AI tools influence teachers' abilities to create dynamic, differentiated, and effective lesson plans.…

The referral process of early elementary grade level students can be long and complex. National statistics show that most of the referrals are done during or after fourth grade. This study worked around the decreasing number of students referred to the Special Education Program during the early grade level stages. The purpose of this qualitative…

Literature has documented the benefits of problem-based learning (PBL), but also shown significant barriers to using PBL in K-12 education. Yet, the research describing why and how K-12 teachers implement PBL is insufficient. In this qualitative study, using semi-structured interviews, we investigate why 25 middle school teachers chose to…

This paper employs narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) as the methodology to uncover a school principal's experiences and perceptions related to ELL teacher professional development. It recognizes educators' personal practical knowledge as the greatest driving force in their professional growth. Through reflecting on her…

This paper explored the nature of alternative education in Texas public schools. Within these learning environments addressing both academic and social literacy is of utmost importance and can be achieved through individualized instruction and attention to goal-setting. The recommendations of this paper were specific to the experiences of an…