Growth-to-standard models evaluate student growth against the growth needed to reach a future standard or target of interest, such as proficiency. A common growth-to-standard model involves comparing the popular Student Growth Percentile (SGP) to Adequate Growth Percentiles (AGPs). AGPs follow from an involved process based on fitting a series of…

The idea that language skills support school readiness, predicting later self-regulation and academic success, is widely accepted. Although vocabulary is often emphasized in the developmental literature, the ability to use language appropriately in the classroom, or "social communication skills," may also be critical. This paper examined…

The current study explores how principals (n = 568) experience a new teacher evaluation model under Race to the Top. Findings suggest that principals felt the least confident in their ability to identify teacher behaviors associated with student achievement gains and placed the least value on student achievement data. Evaluation experience…

The measurement of self-regulation in young children has been a topic of great interest as researchers and practitioners work to help ensure that children have the skills they need to succeed as they start school. The present study examined how a revised version of a commonly used measure of behavioral self-regulation, the…

The authors examined parental involvement's (PI) impact on school performance. The hierarchical linear modeling method was applied to national Schools and Staffing Survey 2007-2008 data. They found that PI variables explained significant variance for the outcomes of (a) meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP) and (b) being free from sanctions. The…

This report provides information for administrators, researchers, and student support staff in local education agencies who are interested in identifying students who are likely to have near-term academic problems such as absenteeism, suspensions, poor grades, and low performance on state tests. The report describes an approach for developing a…

The document are the appendixes for the full report, "Using Data from Schools and Child Welfare Agencies to Predict Near-Term Academic Risks." The study team collected and linked five academic years of student-level administrative data from Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS), Propel Schools, and the Allegheny County Department of Human…

Using assessment data to determine student growth has become an integral part of the accountability movement, and researchers and educators are currently examining how new rules impact the academic assessment of gifted learners. In 2008, the Association for the Gifted's Annual Symposium at the Council for Exceptional Children Convention focused on…

The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to determine if and to what extent a difference existed in the percentage of African American students, percentage of economically disadvantaged students, and students' attendance rate in elementary schools that made adequate yearly progress (AYP) and those that did not make AYP in one…

The NCLB (No Child Left Behind Act) specifies that states must develop AYP (adequate yearly progress) statewide measurable objectives for improved achievement by all students, including economically disadvantaged students, students from minority races, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency. By the 2013-2014…

Today, with states' near-universal adoption of the Common Core State Standards, the political system has achieved that which was not possible less than 2 decades ago. Just why this is so remains unanswered. Some observers have attributed states' embrace of the standards to the substantial financial incentives that the federal government embedded…

Although there exists a large body of research concerning the relationship between expenditure and student achievement, a lack of research exists analyzing this relationship as it pertains specifically to students with disabilities. Given the increasing fiscal and academic pressures districts face to allocate resources efficiently, the purpose of…

According to an extensive review of the literature, effective instructional delivery and "classroom management" practices are critical factors to elevate student achievement (Shindler, Jones, Williams, Taylor, & Cadenas, 2012). The purpose of this study was to analyze a comparison of classroom management practices on student…

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…

Little research has examined the relationship between academic content coverage in kindergarten and student achievement. Using nationally representative data, we examine the association between reading and mathematics content coverage in kindergarten and student learning, both overall and for students who attended preschool, Head Start, or…