This presentation was an invited address at the opening session of the 2021 Annual Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST) in Ft. Worth, Texas. The presentation will investigate student achievement using three perspectives. The presenters will first ask if one could recognize a great teacher. They will then report research…

Summer learning loss is a perennial concern for educators and parents alike. However, researchers have recently questioned whether summer learning loss is just a statistical artifact driven by how achievement is measured across the school year. In this study, we empirically investigated a plausible critique of summer learning loss research, namely…

Learning to read by the end of third grade is a pathway to a successful life (Keesler, 2019). Research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that students who are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade are four times more likely to drop out of high school and are ineligible for a majority of jobs in the United States (Hernandez,…

In the aftermath of the pandemic, public schools nationwide face profound challenges. Student test scores are down, absenteeism is at an all-time high, and educators are working tirelessly to bridge the learning gap. But research shows families believe that everything is back to normal or will be soon. This report explores this disconnect by…

The lack of achievement in public schools has been a concern globally and has negatively affected the growth of communities and the economy. School principals have a central role in implementing effective instructional practices and creating a positive teaching and learning environment that fosters student achievement. The problem addressed was a…

Efforts to attract and retain effective educators in high-poverty public schools have had limited success. Dallas ISD addressed this challenge with information produced by its evaluation system to offer large, compensating differentials to highly effective teachers willing to work in its lowest-achievement schools. The Accelerating Campus…

The quantitative nonexperimental correlational study examines principals' attitudes towards intelligence and inclusion and the academic growth of students with disabilities. Additionally, the study comparatively examined principals' attitudes toward intelligence and inclusion across 11 demographic factors. The Theories of Intelligence Scale --…

The COVID-19 pandemic inflicted massive disruptions on all aspects of daily life, not least of which was the education of K-12 students. It is accepted wisdom among many educational researchers that students need face-to-face instruction from certified teachers in order to flourish. But because students in many districts were forced to stay home…

School choice is spreading across the U.S. at the same time that scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) are stagnant. We examine the association between education freedom and 8th grade student NAEP score levels and gains in states in 2019. We construct the 2019 Education Freedom Index as a composite measure of the…

Efforts to attract and retain effective educators in high poverty public schools have had limited success. Dallas ISD addressed this challenge by using information produced by its evaluation and compensation reforms as the basis for effectiveness-adjusted payments that provided large compensating differentials to attract and retain effective…

Purpose: The purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental descriptive study was to explore whether there has been a significant decrease in attendance rates or a significant decrease in achievement as evidenced by assessment scores for students in the K-12 public school system after the COVID-19 compulsory distance learning period for the Asian…

Bridge International Academies, the largest network of elementary schools in the developing world operates both low-cost private schools, and public-private partnership schools. More than 800,000 students are enrolled in 2,026 schools in five countries. Bridge tries lots of different ideas and initiatives, many of which are backed up by research…

Policymakers have renewed calls for expanding instructional time in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We establish a set of empirical facts about time in school, synthesize the literature on the causal effects of instructional time, and conduct a case study of time use in an urban district. On average, instructional time in U.S. public schools is…

The Innovation Schools Act of 2008, § 22-32.5-102, et seq. C.R.S., was designed to provide a pathway for schools and districts to develop and implement innovative practices in a wide variety of areas and contexts to improve student outcomes. The Act provides a formal process that allows schools or groups of schools to make requests to their local…

States and districts are increasingly incorporating measures of achievement growth into their school accountability systems, but there is little research on how these changes affect the public's perceptions of school quality. We conduct a nationally representative online survey experiment to identify the effects of providing participants with…