Research Findings: This study investigated the association between Mexican American maternal education and socioeconomic status (SES) and child vocabulary as mediated by parental reading beliefs, home literacy environment (HLE), and parent-child shared reading frequency. As part of a larger study, maternal reports of education level, SES, HLE, and…

Children from low-income and ethnic minority backgrounds have demonstrated substantially lower levels of math achievement than their middle class majority peers for decades. The present study addressed two research questions: (1) when used as a supplement to typical classroom instruction and in isolation from the larger curriculum, does Building…

English language learners (ELLs) benefit when their teachers utilize a wide range of English as a Second Language (ESL) instructional strategies. However, content-area teachers often are unfamiliar with these ESL strategies as they have not received extensive professional development on meeting the needs of ELLs, especially within the context in…

This study evaluated Earobics Step 1, a commercial literacy program, and examined whether impact varied with children's school readiness and classroom instruction. Participants included 247 kindergarteners from 37 classrooms in nine Title 1 schools. Children were randomly assigned to receive 21 weeks of computerized instruction with Earobics or…

Recent research on the design of social experiments has highlighted the effects of different design choices on research findings. Since experiments rarely collect their samples using random selection, in order to address these external validity problems and design choices, recent research has focused on two areas. The first area is on methods for…

"Teach For America" ("TFA") is a highly selective route to teacher certification that aims to place non-traditionally trained teachers in high-need public schools. The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) identified seven studies of teachers trained through "TFA" that both fall within the scope of the Teacher Training,…

While high school graduation rates are on the rise nationwide, too many students still never reach that milestone, with 7,000 on average dropping out every day. Recognizing that many students need additional support to succeed in school, Communities In Schools (CIS) works to provide and connect students with integrated support services to keep…

This study investigated the impact of a dynamic geometry (DG)-centered teacher professional development program on high school geometry teachers' content knowledge and their students' geometry learning. 64 geometry teachers were randomly assigned to an experimental (DG) group and a control group. Both groups received appropriate and relevant…

The capacity of the field to conduct power analyses for group randomized trials (GRTs) of educational interventions has improved over the past decade (Authors, 2009). However, a power analysis depends on estimates of design parameters. Hence it is critical to build the empirical base of design parameters for GRTs across a variety of outcomes and…

In school districts across the nation, diverse student groups, including English Learners and students with disabilities, have been experiencing significant gains in reading performance after using READ 180. This compendium of READ 180 research contains results of 40 studies conducted in a variety of settings, in school districts across the…

This study examines the effect of 30 min of small group explicit instruction on reading outcomes for first-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk of reading difficulties. Participants were 78 ELs from seven schools who were receiving Spanish only, or Spanish and English, whole group reading instruction in first grade. Students were…

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a classroom-based behavior management strategy aimed at reducing aggressive/disruptive behavior and socializing children into the role of student. GBG, delivered in first and second grades, has been shown to reduce rates of substance abuse and other deleterious outcomes into young adulthood (Brown, C.H. et al 2007,…

This study examines the effect of 30 min of small group explicit instruction on reading outcomes for first-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk of reading difficulties. Participants were 78 ELs from seven schools who were receiving Spanish only, or Spanish and English, whole group reading instruction in first grade. Students were…

Despite decades of policy intervention to increase college entry among low-income students, considerable gaps by socioeconomic status remain. To date, policy makers have largely overlooked the summer after high school as an important time period in students' transition to college. In Summer 2012, the authors designed a randomized trial to…

This paper presents research that explores similarities and differences across six randomized controlled trials of learning communities in community colleges that were conducted by MDRC and the National Center for Postsecondary Research. Five of these studies track students' progress in the program semester and two follow-up semesters, and one…