This study examines the effects of self-efficacy, students' effort and access to educational resources, and teachers' development on the achievement of elementary school students in mathematics. Using the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) restricted data set, this study determined if and how these three aspects individually…

The purpose of this dissertation was to scrutinize the complexities involved in the formulation and implementation of relevant policies. The design of each study mirrored key elements in the legislative life cycle specifically as it pertained to civics education policymaking, including problem identification, policy creation, and policy diffusion.…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what students in public and private schools know and can do in various subjects. First administered in 1969, NAEP collects and reports information on student trends and performance and compares the achievement of students in…

Money matters in education, especially for students from families that are struggling financially. Increasing school funding not only leads to improved school completion rates and higher achievement in low-income school districts, but over the long-term it can increase educational attainment, wages, and family incomes for children from low-income…

The impact of school resources on student outcomes was first raised in the 1960s and has been controversial since then. This issue enters into the decision making on school finance in both legislatures and the courts. The historical research found little consistent or systematic relationship of spending and achievement, but this research…

Striving to remain a global leader in innovation, the United States continues prioritizing broadening participation in engineering and other STEM fields. For this reason, STEM outreach programs are increasingly popular and vital. However, few programs offer such outreach experiences at a large, national scale and intentionally situate those…

This report, submitted in compliance with 105 ILCS 5/1A-4E, provides a discussion of the overall condition of education in Illinois. Information is included concerning student and teacher demographics; data on teacher and administrator licensure; federal, state, and local resources; and other data on Illinois education. The 2021 Condition of…

Arizona has played a large part in the development and implementation of policy that directly inhibits equity of opportunity for the English learner (EL) population, the largest and most damaging of which came out of legislation passed due to the "Flores v. Arizona" case which concluded in 2015. This research article seeks to critically…

By aligning factors that most commonly influence the achievement of Black and Hispanic students with the type of resources inside the black box of schooling, this study differentiated the achievement effect of school resources from what was brought by students to schools. The hierarchical regression results showed that minority students'…

The Great Recession was the most severe economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression. Using data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), we describe the patterns of math and English language arts (ELA) achievement for students attending schools in communities differentially affected by recession-induced employment…

This past year has been unlike any in recent history. In March, the global COVID-19 pandemic forced Illinois to shift suddenly to remote learning for all students. This adjustment exposed the digital divide as a stark reality. One bright spot in the year occurred in May, when the Illinois' plan for career and technical education (CTE) received…

We study the impact of post-1990 school finance reforms, during the so-called "adequacy" era, on absolute and relative spending and achievement in low-income school districts. Using an event study research design that exploits the apparent randomness of reform timing, we show that reforms lead to sharp, immediate, and sustained increases…

A recent literature provides new evidence that school resources are important for student outcomes. In this paper, we show that school finance reform-induced increases in student performance are driven by those states that had test-based accountability policies in place at the time. By incentivizing school improvement, accountability systems (such…

The National Indian Education Study (NIES) is administered as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to allow more in-depth reporting on the achievement and experiences of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN)1 students in grades 4 and 8. This report focuses primarily on two themes identified during the development of the…

In reports released in 2012 (see ED536674) and 2013 (see ED543118), the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice--now EdChoice--showed that American public schools had been on a six-decade staffing surge. That is, between 1950 and 2009, public schools added school personnel at a rate that far exceeded the increases needed to keep up with student…