We examined student reading achievement in rural and non-rural school districts in Texas. Our research questions probed the improvement in student performance over time, differences in the number of students achieving at different performance levels, and the impact of district-level characteristics on reading achievement. Through quantitative…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in Inclusive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high schools compared to Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in traditional public schools. Twenty-eight schools, 14 of which were Texas STEM (T-STEM) academies…

This research responds to the call by early childhood educators advocating for more challenging mathematics curriculum at the primary level. The kindergarten Project M[superscript 2] units focus on challenging geometry and measurement concepts by positioning students as practicing mathematicians. The research reported herein highlights the…

The Common Guidelines for Education Research and Development were created as a joint effort between the Institute of Education Science and the National Science Foundation in an effort to streamline education research and contribute to an accumulation of knowledge that will lead to improved student outcomes. One type of research that emerged in the…

Little is known empirically about intraclass correlations (ICCs) for multisite cluster randomized trial (MSCRT) designs, particularly in science education. In this study, ICCs suitable for science achievement studies using a three-level (students in schools in districts) MSCRT design that block on district are estimated and examined. Estimates of…

The purpose of this replication study was to examine the impact of the Teacher Study Group (TSG) professional development in vocabulary on first-grade teachers' knowledge of vocabulary instruction and observed teaching practice, and on students' vocabulary knowledge. Sixty-two schools from 16 districts in four states were randomly assigned to…

This study evaluated the effects of a mathematics software program, the Building Blocks software suite, on young children's mathematics performance. Participants included 247 Kindergartners from 37 classrooms in 9 schools located in low-income communities. Children within classrooms were randomly assigned to receive 21 weeks of computer-assisted…

This study evaluated the effects of a mathematics software program, the Building Blocks software suite, on young children's mathematics performance. Participants included 247 Kindergartners from 37 classrooms in 9 schools located in low-income communities. Children within classrooms were randomly assigned to receive 21 weeks of computer-assisted…

What is "teaching to the test," and can one detect evidence of this practice in state test scores? This paper unpacks this concept and empirically investigates one variant of it by analyzing test item--level data from three states' mathematics and reading tests. We show that NCLB-era state tests predictably emphasized some state…

The capacity of the field to conduct power analyses for group randomized trials (GRTs) of educational interventions has improved over the past decade (Authors, 2009). However, a power analysis depends on estimates of design parameters. Hence it is critical to build the empirical base of design parameters for GRTs across a variety of outcomes and…