In January 2000, the Alternative and Safe Schools Instructional and Support Division (ASSIS) of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NC DPI) was charged with developing guidelines that determined how districts could establish and maintain effective Alternative Learning Programs (NC DPI, 2014). In 2003, ASSIS produced the first…

Purpose: College placement assessments in the USA have underperformed in predicting college readiness. This has prompted a wave of reforms to placement practices and policies. Recently, student preparation for placement assessments has come to the forefront as a means for enabling better evaluation of college readiness. In this study, the authors…

Stand-alone reading intervention courses, or reading classes, are designed to facilitate the literacy development of adolescents who have been deemed "struggling" readers. However, the existence of such courses does not mean that these goals are realized. Decades of qualitative research on youth perspectives and experiences have…

We present a system for math placement and intervention that pairs ALEKS PPL with an online, standards-based "bridge" course designed to prepare students interested in STEM for PreCalculus. To determine the efficacy of this system we studied ALEKS PPL placement scores, bridge course grades, ALEKS concept mastery percentages, and…

This study examined the impact of Classworks® Individualized Learning math instruction on second-grade students performing below the 25th percentile in math. The research, conducted during the 2021-2022 school year, involved 1,367 students from 45 schools across seven districts. A quasi-experimental design compared 941 students who had any use of…

This study explores the impact of implementing a peer mediation program in a middle school setting through an action research framework, presented as a series of case studies. The group of students receiving the intervention are on one "team" in the middle school, sharing the same group of teachers. The team is on a lower academic track,…

Offering "Early Start" programs in the summer before students start their first year of college is one of the strategies that the California State University (CSU) system has used to support incoming students who may not be ready for college-level work in mathematics or written communication. In 2017, the CSU system began implementing a…

This report is part of a series focusing on studies intended to inform the California State University (CSU) system about the implementation of Executive Order 1110 (EO 1110). A major policy adopted by the CSU Chancellor's Office in 2017, EO 1110 requires CSU campuses to eliminate noncredit developmental courses -- often known as…

Background: Among the most contested topics within special education research concerns racial disparities in students identified with disabilities. This phenomenon, referred to as disproportionality in special education placement, is historically rooted in concerns surrounding the overrepresentation of Black students in special education across…

WestEd is undertaking a multiyear series of implementation studies intended to inform the California State University (CSU) system about the implementation of Executive Order 1110 (EO 1110). A major policy adopted by the CSU Chancellor's Office in 2017, EO 1110 requires CSU campuses to eliminate non-credit developmental courses in Written…

Senate Bill (SB) 163 would alter the current law that requires coverage of behavioral health treatment (BHT) for autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). SB 163 would expand the definition of BHT to include treatment modalities based on developmental theory, would make technical changes to definitions related to network adequacy, would prohibit denial of…

Although substantial evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention for students with severe disabilities who have complex communication needs, increasing importance is being placed on understanding how to move research into practice. This descriptive qualitative study focused on…

This study addressed the impact of VAM, concerns with VAM data, uses and interventions educational leaders provided teachers, and components perceived as necessary for VAM effectiveness as an evaluation tool. The demographics used for this study were position, school size, and experience. Due to the documented need for educational accountability…

In 2007 the Department of Mathematics at our institution began developing a placement process designed to identify at-risk students entering mathematics courses at the College Algebra and Calculus levels. Major changes in our placement testing process and the resulting interventions for at-risk students were put in place in Fall of 2008. At the…

Almost two-thirds of students who enter community colleges every year are judged to be academically not ready to engage in college-level coursework. In order to enroll, these students typically must take one or more "remedial" or "developmental" math or English courses that will not count toward their college degree. The…