Schools often track students to classes based on ability. Proponents of tracking argue it is a low-cost tool to improve learning since instruction is more effective when students are more homogeneous, while opponents argue it exacerbates initial differences in opportunities without strong evidence of efficacy. In fact, little is known about the…

The number of English learners (ELs) who do not reclassify as English proficient after the first five years of schooling has increased in the Houston area and the state of Texas. ELs are a diverse population of students with varying levels of English proficiency. Many students who begin school as an EL reclassify as English proficient in a timely…

Prior studies suggest that struggling to make sense of mathematics is a necessary component of learning mathematics with understanding. Little research exists, however, on what the struggles look like for middle school students and how they can be productive. This exploratory case study, which used episodes as units of analysis, examined 186…

In this work we examined the content of approximately 950 mathematics questions used in measuring achievement among 4th, 5th and 6th graders in the US in an attempt to determine how the current standardized examinations, which were developed to reflect new national curricular mandates, compared to the old measures used for the same purpose. Using…

As a result of the use of random assignment to treatment, randomized experiments typically have high internal validity. However, units are very rarely randomly selected from a well-defined population of interest into an experiment; this results in low external validity. Under nonrandom sampling, this means that the estimate of the sample average…

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) focuses on promoting social competence through the establishment of behavior expectations that are explicitly taught and reinforced by all teachers across all settings. This study investigated the validity of using adherence to SWPBS behavior expectations as a screening tool for predicting behavior…

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is committed to providing partners with useful tools to help make inferences from the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) interim assessment scores. One important tool is the concordance table between MAP and state summative assessments. Concordance tables have been used for decades to relate scores on…

Traditionally, school librarians have had two main strategies for impacting the literacy development of students in their schools. One way is through reading promotion efforts: book talks, book displays, or online book trailers, and literacy events such as book fairs, contests, and reading incentive programs. The other way has been through…

The University Interscholastic League (UIL) governs Texas public school academic, athletic, and music contests and is the largest inter-school organization of its kind in the world (University Interscholastic League, n.d.a). The music division of UIL is an important part of music education in Texas, with over half a million middle school and high…

This report is part of a long-term collaboration of the Quality Teaching for English Learners initiative at WestEd with the Fort Worth Independent School District. The focus of this report is on comparisons between ninth grade newcomers and other groups of English language learners (ELLs). Analyses compare newcomers to 1) long-term ELLs who were…

The purpose of this study was to examine selected factors related to the 8th grade mathematics achievement levels of English Language Learner (ELL) students in selected South Texas middle schools. The dependent variable, ELL mathematics achievement, was measured by the ELL student's raw score on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness…

Middle school teachers tend to rely heavily on texts that have become increasing more visual. There is little information available about the graphical demands of general middle grades' science texts. The purpose of this study was to quantify the type and quality of the graphical representations and how they interacted with the textual material in…

This study investigates the successes of the charter and district sectors in eliminating bad schools via dramatic turnarounds in performance and/or shutdowns. It identified 2,025 low-performing charter and district schools across ten states, each of which is home to a sizable number of charter schools. These particular schools were tracked from…