The past two decades have seen an overall increase in the number of students pursuing a graduate degree in the United States. Gaining a more nuanced understanding of how graduate students navigate the academic, personal, and professional challenges of post baccalaureate education will help programs better support them and ensure student success.…

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to examine the implementation of Restorative Practices in selected elementary schools in southeast Texas. Restorative Practices will generally be defined as a social science that studies how to build social capital and achieve social discipline through participatory learning and decision…

Teacher appraisal and evaluation systems have increased the level of teacher accountability, resulting in increased pressure to be successful in the classroom (Benedict, Thomas, Kimerling, & Leko, 2013; Derrington, 2011; Glazerman et al., 2011; Papay, 2012). As a result, several states have begun to stray from the traditional methods of…

Using a low-inference observation instrument, we investigated the effect of an ongoing, intensive, and structured virtual professional development (VPD) based on the fidelity of implementation (FOI) across treatment and control conditions in a randomized controlled trial validation study implemented in 116-bilingual classrooms in seven Texas…

A recent report published by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) presents findings from the first-year evaluation of the Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program, one of several statewide educator incentive programs in Texas. Findings are based on surveys administered to GEEG teachers during the 2006-07 school year, the…

A study examined the impact of teaching handicapped students in regular vocational education classrooms on class interaction and instructional variables. During the study, researchers conducted individual interviews with 22 vocational education instructors from 11 randomly selected school districts throughout Texas and later conducted a total of…

With distance learning increasing in popularity across the country and the world, a review of the extant literature as it relates to distance learning and face-to-face learning is warranted. In particular, this paper examined distance learning, including a historical overview, prevailing themes in past research, and studies relating the importance…

Now that all 50 states and the District of Columbia are building statewide longitudinal data systems, the next step is to ensure that the information in these systems is used to improve student learning. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has identified 10 actions that states can take to ensure that the right data are available and accessible and…