School leaders face increased pressure to identify instructional and administrative practices that increase student achievement. However, achievement gaps persist between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged student groups. This study highlighted relationships between ability grouping and academic achievement in a suburban school district.…

Recess contributes to enhanced academic performance as well as social, emotional and physical development of the child. All of these are important parts of a successful education. Yet, time on recess is being reduced due to increased focus on academic performance on standardized tests. This study examined administrators', teachers' and students'…

Through comparative case study, we seek to understand the ways in which actors in high schools use and think about performance data. In particular, we compare data use in higher and lower value-added schools. Data use is conceptualized here as having access to a host of available performance data on students, using them to guide instructional…

This developmental evaluation used multiple methods to evaluate the implementation of a grading reform initiated by two math teachers in a large traditional middle school in greater Minnesota. The reform, titled "Grading for Learning," was developed based on a review of scholarly research and a collaboration of an interdisciplinary group…

The purpose of this study was to compare three groups: JROTC students, student athletes, and other students, to determine if there were differences in academic achievement. Gaining an understanding of the necessary skills required to become academically successful and make healthy life choices, could provide educators working within an urban…

This report, written by WestEd's Adam Voight, Gregory Austin, and Thomas Hanson, describes a study that examines what makes successful schools different from other schools. Rather than define success in absolute terms, this study's definition is based on whether or not a school is performing better than predicted given the characteristics of the…

This study was designed to determine if differences in student achievement existed between traditional public and charter high schools in the District of Columbia. The study examined student outcomes on the standardized state test in reading and math from 2006 to 2010 utilizing descriptive statistics, crosstab analysis, chi-square tests…

Teachers in a Southern California, high-needs, low-achieving elementary school participated in a three-year period of action research beginning in the 2009-2010 academic year. As part of the action research, teachers received 40 hours of in-person professional development, classroom coaching, and online support to improve their understanding and…

Standardizing aspects of assessments has long been recognized as a tactic to help make evaluations of examinees fair. It reduces variation in irrelevant aspects of testing procedures that could advantage some examinees and disadvantage others. However, recent attention to making assessment accessible to a more diverse population of students…

A great number of teachers in the United States have found themselves wrestling with an internal conflict between their teaching beliefs and a need to revert back to traditional modes of teaching in order to have their students demonstrate proficiency on high-stakes tests. While they want to include more non-traditional methods in their repertoire…

This article evaluates the full-scale integration of the ePortfolio into a healthcare professional program in an open admissions community college in the United States. The Physical Therapist Assistant program in question struggles to balance the dynamic tension between preparing students for a summative multiple-choice licensing examination and…

The purpose of this study was to examine induction programs in North Carolina during the 2010-2011 school year to determine beginning teachers received the support as recommended by State Board of Education policy. Participants were second-year high school teachers participating in district level beginning teacher induction programs and were…

The academic performance of African American students continues to be a concern for educators, researchers, and most importantly their community. This issue is particularly prevalent in the standardized test scores of African American students where they score on average one or more standard deviations below their Caucasian and Asian American…

The study reviewed in this report examined the effectiveness of the "Milwaukee Parental Choice Program" ("MPCP"), which provides vouchers for low-income students to attend private schools. The study analyzed data on about 600 students who were given "MPCP" vouchers in the 2006-07 school year. The authors created a…

Multiple catalysts are fueling states' increased urgency to establish a definition of "college readiness". Some states are creating a "college readiness" definition that describes what a student will know and be able to do in such core academic courses as English language arts and math, and that identifies items or benchmarks on state assessments…