This article examines associations between child care subsidy use in early childhood and children's middle school outcomes. Using a unique database linking administrative records of child care subsidy receipt with parental earnings, social assistance data, and students' public school outcomes, we generate quasi-experimental estimates of subsidy…

This research study examines the impact of teacher research on participants in a large-scale educational reform initiative in the United States, No Child Left Behind, and its strand for reading teachers, Reading First. Reading First supported professional development for teachers in order to increase student scores on standardized tests. The…

Preschool parent interventions may produce downstream benefits if initial intervention gains are sustained and improve later socialization experiences. This study explored associations between initial effects of the REDI (Research-based Developmentally Informed) Parent program and later benefits. A randomized trial involving 200 Head Start…

In 2009 the U.S. Department of Education announced the requirements and selection criteria for the monies attached to the Race to the Top Fund. The monies attached to this competition were awarded during phase one, phase two, and phase three. This casual comparative study examined the impact of the Race to the Top federal education competition on…

In recent decades, much attention has been focused on student achievement in the United States. Many policy initiatives have been attempted in an effort to bolster achievement, including increasing school revenue, decreasing class size, expanding early childhood programs, and introducing vouchers and charter schools, to name a few, but not all of…

State testing programs today are more extensive than ever, and their results are required to serve more purposes and high-stakes decisions than one might have imagined. Assessment results are used to hold schools, districts, and states accountable for student performance and to help guide a multitude of important decisions. This report describes…

This report measures trends in performance among urban schools receiving federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) awards as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The Council of the Great City Schools aims to document how member districts of the Council of the Great City Schools implemented SIG and specifically what…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the length of years of preschool attendance on the academic achievement and retention of third and fourth grade students in high and low achieving schools. The study consisted of the analysis of secondary data, i.e., mathematics and language arts literacy scores as the measurement of academic…

The authors of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB 107-110) Act of 2001 anticipated that a majority of school districts or schools would not be able to attain state and national achievement standards without assistance. Consequently, the Act created a major tenet known as Supplemental Educational Services (SES) programs to improve the learning outcomes…

According to Birchak, Connor, Crawford, Kahn, Kaser, Turner, & Short (1998), Fang, Fu, & Lamme (2004), Kennedy & Sheil (2010), and Wiliam (2008), teacher study groups can provide a supportive and collaborative professional development environment. The purpose of this study was to examine the professional development experiences of…

Do students perform better on statewide assessments in years in which they have more school days to prepare? We explore this question using data on math and reading assessments taken by students in the third, fifth, and eighth grades since 1994 in Maryland. Our identification strategy is rooted in the fact that tests are administered on the same…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of a Response to Intervention framework had a positive impact on student reading achievement in urban elementary schools. This was a causal-comparative study that examined the reading performance of a sample of kindergarten through grade three students who experienced the Response to…

The impact of schools and students not meeting academic achievement standards affects the community and the nation's future workforce. This paper examines many of the factors influencing achievement with special attention given to the facts of teacher turnover in the schools. Teacher turnover and the sad state of the academic achievement of…

The "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB, 2001) required schools to make adequate yearly progress, use disaggregated data in planning, and employ highly-qualified teachers. The school leaders became those responsible for the success of the school. In South Carolina the Department of Education has recently sought to address adequacy needs…

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, states have been required to set minimum proficiency standards that virtually all students must meet by 2014. Sanctions of increasing severity are to be applied to schools that fail to meet interim targets, known as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). The authors examine the effect of this legislation using…