Evidence suggests teacher hiring in public schools is ad-hoc and often does not result in good selection amongst applicants. Some districts use structured selection instruments in the hiring process, but we know little about the efficacy of such tools. In this paper we evaluate the ability of applicant selection tools used by Spokane Public…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of mixed methods research in a major three year project and focuses on the contribution of quantitative and qualitative approaches to study school improvement. It discusses the procedures and multiple data sources used in studying improvement using the example of a recent study of the role…

Charter schools have become the cornerstone of school reform in Chicago and in many other large cities. Enrollments in Chicago charters increased by more than ten times between 2000 and 2014 and, with strong support from the current mayor and his administration, the system continues to grow. Indeed, although state law limits charter schools in…

Refutation texts have been shown to be effective at promoting knowledge revision. It has been suggested that refutation texts are most effective when the misconception and the correct information are co-activated and integrated with causal networks that support the correct information. We explored two augmentations to a refutation text that might…

Purpose: This manuscript represents the 3rd in a series of articles documenting our longitudinal evaluation of "The First Tee," a physical activity-based youth development program that uses golf as a vehicle for teaching life skills and enhancing developmental outcomes. Previous phases of our project: (a) established initial data-based…

The Ohio Teacher Evaluation System (OTES) was created in response to the 2009 House Bill 1 mandate requiring the development of a state teacher performance assessment. This study examined K-12 public school teachers' dispositions toward OTES after the first year of implementation. Data were collected from 142 teachers over a 4-week period in 2015…

Teachers choose the teaching profession because of their love of children and their desire to help them grow and blossom as learners. Across the nation, however, far too many educators are leaving the classroom. Headlines report teacher shortages in nearly every state. One factor reported in almost every story is the discouragement teachers feel…

In Djibouti, extreme poverty was 41.9% and relative poverty 79.4% according to the poverty profile elaborated by the national statistical office (DISED) in 2012. Malnutrition remains high in Djibouti, and comparable to Sub-Saharan countries, with 29.7% of children under the age of five chronically malnourished, 29.6% underweight, and over 17.8% of…

The increased emphasis on using student growth measures in teacher evaluation has raised questions about how to treat test scores from students with disabilities. This study explores the consequences of three common approaches for treating scores from students with disabilities in statistical approaches to estimating teacher effectiveness: (1)…

There has been an active debate in the literature over the validity of value-added models. In this study, the author tests the central assumption of value-added models that school assignment is random relative to expected test scores conditional on prior test scores, demographic variables, and other controls. He uses a Chicago charter school's…

Policymakers and school administrators have embraced value-added models of teacher effectiveness as tools for educational improvement. Teacher value-added estimates may be viewed as complicated scores of a certain kind. This suggests using a test validation model to examine their reliability and validity. Validation begins with an interpretive…

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…

It is not known to what extent the pre-employment teacher selection instrument scores used by a Tennessee school district correlate to teachers' post-employment quality after their first year of service. Two research questions guided the study on the Correlation Between a Teacher Selection Instrument and Teacher Quality in Tennessee: (1) To what…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the TVAAS growth score given by the Tennessee Department of Education and the overall Tennessee Educator Assessment Model (TEAM) observation rating for teachers in grades 3 through 8. The participating county public school system for this study is located in Northeast Tennessee.…

Using a theory of affordances, this study examines the introduction of e-books into the early literacy environment as resources that can increase children's opportunity for learning vocabulary. Added value was observed under conditions of (1) book browsing, (2) instruction, and (3) a print-only condition. A total of 33 4-year-olds (18 boys, 15…