Providing feedback to students in a sustainable way represents a perennial challenge for secondary teachers of writing. Employing artificial intelligence (AI) tools to give students personalized and immediate feedback holds great promise. Project Topeka offered middle school teachers pre-curated teaching materials, foundational texts and videos,…

For the past three years, SELF (Sports, Education, Life Skills, and Faith) has focused on improving academic, behavioral, and social skills of students at Key, Revere, and Meyerland middle schools in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Tutorials, an essay contest, character-building lessons, sports, a high-school bridge program, and…

The SELF Foundation afterschool program involved 255 students at Key, Revere, and Meyerland (formerly Johnston) middle schools in tutorials and enrichment activities to support their academic, social, and emotional development. All students at SELF schools were allowed to participate in a character-building essay contest for prizes. Program impact…

These are the appendixes for the report "Effects of an Inquiry-Oriented Curriculum and Professional Development Program on Grade 7 Students' Understanding of Statistics and on Statistics Instruction." This cluster-randomized controlled trial compared the Supporting Teacher Enactment of the Probability and Statistics Standards (STEPSS)…

In 2018-2019, the program's second federally funded year, GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) Austin served a cohort of 7th-grade students (n = 2,536) across 11 middle schools. Nearly all GEAR UP students received support services relevant to college preparation. Evaluation findings suggest that students,…

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the implementation and impact of the IDEA Public Schools' Mathematics Curriculum Redesign (MCR) effort, funded by an Innovation and Research (EIR) grant. Methods: The study used a quasi-experimental matching design to examine the effect of MCR on student achievement outcomes. The study compared…

Research has begun to show that certain schoolwide characteristics--such as student-centered learning environments, leadership, and safety--can be important for improving student outcomes. In keeping with these insights, school improvement efforts around the country are becoming less narrowly focused on the performance of individual students and…

Vocabulary.com is an online adaptive game that teaches students words by systematic exposure to a variety of question types and activities and by understanding all the word meanings and nuances as they are learned. Vocabulary.com teaches 14,000 words using over 208,000 questions. It has been implemented with the Houston Independent School…

Dyslexia is considered a learning disorder characterized by difficulty in learning to read, write, and spell despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and sociocultural opportunities (TEC§38.003 cited in Texas Education Agency, 2014). The Texas Education Code (TEC) §38.003 makes provision for the evaluation and identification of…

These are the appendixes for the report, "District Changes in Student Achievement and Local Practice under Georgia's District and School Flexibility Policy." Five appendixes are included in the document: (1) About the study; (2) Data and methods; (3) Supporting analysis; (4) Survey instrument; and (5) Interview protocol. [For the full…

Title I, Part A and Title II, Part A funds are provided to Houston Independent School District (HISD) through the 2015 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), also known as Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Both funds focus on enhancing student achievement: Title I, Part A provides supplemental support for…

Serving Up Lemonade (SUL) was designed to help students establish and operate their own lemonade business, while strengthening life skills related to the 40 Developmental Assets®. SUL has expanded from sixth-grade students during the 2010-2011 academic year to sixth- and seventh-grade students in 2011-2012. In 2012-2013, eighth-grade students were…

Title I, Part A and Title II, Part A funds are provided to Houston Independent School District (HISD) through the 2002 reauthorization of the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965" (ESEA), also known as the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" (NCLB). ESEA was reauthorized in 2015 as the "Every Student Succeeds…

This study examined teacher perceptions of online and face-to-face professional development (PD) in four large school districts implementing an integrated school improvement initiative. The online PD component of this study was designed to support core 9th grade mathematics curriculum, and aligned safety net programs in literacy and mathematics.…

When Superintendent Denise Juneau took office in 2009, there were 2,423 students who dropped out of school, and Montana had a dropout rate of 5.1 percent. Inspired by the early successes of the Graduation Matters Missoula initiative, Superintendent Juneau launched Graduation Matters Montana in 2010. Graduation Matters Montana is a statewide effort…