Introduction: A significant share of young adults lack the skills needed for the 21st-century workforce, contributing to persistent shortages of workers in middle-skill jobs--positions requiring more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor's degree (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2022). In response, policymakers have increasingly…

Definitions are foundational to reasoning about mathematics. Students need opportunities to engage in the practice of defining instead of simply being given definitions (Kobiela and Lehrer 2015). This presents a challenge regarding how definitions should be introduced, developed, and used as students discuss and make sense of mathematics. The…

Data about English Learner (EL) students in the United States are more plentiful than ever. Under the federal "Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015" (ESSA), states must report a wide range of information about their students' English language arts and math standardized test scores, graduation rates, and more. They must also break these…

Nanoscale science and technology (NST) is an important new field in modern science. In the current study, we seek to answer the question: "What are the essential concepts of NST that should be taught in high school"? A 3-round Delphi study methodology was applied based on 2 communities of experts in nanotechnology research and science…

This study of 182 secondary special education students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders investigated their classification by their school districts, in particular how well they were distinguished and represented by their federal categories. The districts used four classification groups (emotional disturbance, other health impairment…

Compared to students from affluent public and prep schools, few inner-city students receive extra time or other accommodations when taking high-stakes tests. The growth in "false positives" among affluent youth may partly stem from nonspecific definitions under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Fairness is being…

Topological and algebraic scales were compared in the representation of the concept of human worth in behavioral-semantic terms. In a first experiment, seven doctoral students of Business Administration in Sweden explored the notion of worth using definitions from at least 10 dictionaries as the intentional-semantic content. Each subject served as…