This improvement project was designed to ensure students enrolled in elementary schools with a high poverty index received literacy instructional strategies that promoted literacy achievement. When analyzing Graham County School data, I noticed third-grade students attending high poverty elementary schools were not achieving literacy success at…

National interest is growing in Integrated Student Support (ISS) interventions, which offer schools systematic ways to reduce barriers to learning. The present study exploits the random component embedded within the school assignment system of a large urban school district to estimate the effect of schools providing ISS on student academic…

In this study, the researcher uses quantitative methods to examine the extent to which Title I funding helps public schools with large populations of economically-disadvantaged students increase student academic achievement in reading and math in grades 3-5, and whether the leaders of these schools utilize specific social justice actions…

The Ready for School, Ready for Life initiative in Guilford County, North Carolina, aims to support interconnected programs and services for young children and their families with the goal of having children enter kindergarten ready for learning. The initiative aims to strengthen connections among existing programs in Guilford County and provide…

Black boys generally have the most disparate outcomes (i.e. exclusionary punishment and office referrals) in regard to discipline in schools, which necessitates the need for interventions to help alleviate this issue. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a video self-modeling (VSM) intervention on students'…

This study drew data from a randomized trial of a statewide prekindergarten program in Tennessee and presents new evidence on the impacts of preK on third-grade achievement using administrative data on children's neighborhood environments. Results indicate that preK had no measurable impact on children's third-grade math achievement regardless of…

This article reports findings from a study of an integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education program on student interest and awareness in science and engineering. The analysis features grade 3-5 students from a high-poverty, urban school system in the Mid-Atlantic region. Through the quantitative analysis of…

State-funded prekindergarten educational programming for all children is a rarity in the United States. Five states offer no financial support to fund prekindergarten educational programming, and the majority offer partial funding. Only three states provide universally funded prekindergarten educational programming. The purpose of this study is to…

Students living in poverty are now the majority of the K-12 student population in the United States. Growing up in poverty results in lower self-regulation, executive function, and readiness to learn. Researchers suggest that mindfulness practices, such as yoga, can enhance student self-regulation and executive function, thereby increasing student…

Two decades ago, the New Jersey Supreme Court in "Abbott v. Burke" mandated that the state establish high quality preschool education in the 31 highest-poverty school districts. New Jersey created a pre-K program with high standards and a continuous improvement system that transformed a patchwork of private and public programs into a…

The purpose of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and Head Start Collaborative programs is to share the responsibility for closing the achievement gap between economically-disadvantaged children and their more affluent peers. HISD collaborates with the following four Head Start agencies: AVANCE-Houston, Inc. (AVANCE), Gulf Coast…

This report demonstrates the effects of the Arkansas Better Chance program (ABC) on late elementary outcomes (third through sixth grades). End of year assessments, which varied over the course of the study years, were examined for students of three preschool cohorts. Students included in the statewide study received free lunch all years and were…

A data set from an urban Midwestern school district was mined to explore how the technology-based reading enrichment known as Mindplay Virtual Reading Coach (MVRC) affects children's performance on the English Language Arts (ELA) Standards state-wide assessment (N = 6098 students from Grades 3 to 9). ELA data from two times points were available,…

In 2013, the Arizona State University (ASU) Preparatory Academy (ASU Prep) was awarded an Investing in Innovation (i3) Grant through the U.S. Department of Education. The district applied with an ambitious grant designed to innovate programming for a total of six schools: two elementary (one Kindergarten through grade 5; one Kindergarten through…

To improve the reading comprehension outcomes of children in high-poverty schools, policymakers need to identify reading interventions that show promise of effectiveness at scale. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a low-cost and large-scale summer reading intervention that provided comprehension lessons at the end of the school year and…