As long-term effects of educational programs cannot be sufficiently addressed by evaluators during short duration implementation grants, researchers become responsible for investigating sustainability of effects and addressing concerns of policy makers and grant funding agencies. This study examines the impact of the TAP System for Teacher and…

Florida's developmental education reform has benefitted most students directly impacted by the reform and has helped to reduce existing achievement gaps by race/ethnicity, English Language Learner status, and academic preparation in short-term outcomes like college course-taking and credit accumulation. Even though the reform was not specifically…

Multiple meta-analyses have now documented small positive effects of teacher professional development (PD) on pupil test scores. However, the field lacks any validated explanatory account of what differentiates more from less effective in-service training. As a result, researchers have little in the way of advice for those tasked with designing or…

This study was a quasi-experimental design (QED) that examined the impact of Intervene K-12 tutoring on mathematics achievement for Grade 9 ELL students identified by HPS as having experienced considerable learning disruptions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and having recently arrived in the United States. Achievement gains for treatment…

This study proposes an empirically grounded theory of how school reform implementation relates to effectiveness, useful for developing and studying many approaches to school reform both in the U.S. and abroad, and also for assessing how policymakers and implementers might leverage various aspects of implementation to create effective school…

Improving student achievement is a continual focus of educational and political leaders. The strategies used to impact student achievement are varied as are the results. The United States Department of Education provides grant funding to states and local educational agencies with the goal of impacting student achievement through the use of…

This dissertation critically examines grading practices within schools, tracing the evolution from traditional to modern approaches and highlighting the social dimensions and debates surrounding grading. Through a mixed-methods study spanning three empirical chapters, it explores students' and teachers' perceptions of grading practices, the impact…

This research study evaluated the effects of the Comprehensive Supports and Improvement (CSI) program on the performance of fifty-six participating schools after one year of school improvement technical assistance. Specifically, it investigated whether the geographic locations of schools, the percentage of inexperienced teachers, and school…

An extensive body of research describes the stark social and academic disparities that characterize large, comprehensive public high schools. Advocates have argued that smaller high schools, with their necessarily more constrained curricula, have the potential to improve student academic outcomes and their equitable distribution. Using propensity…

Technology has become an integral part of the teaching and learning process in the current educational landscape, revolutionizing students' learning experiences in alternative and traditional educational settings. However, despite having access to various tech tools that support student learning, an achievement gap still exists, and many students…

Districts are struggling to accelerate students' learning, support their health and wellness, and close the achievement gap. Labeled "worst" in 1987, by 2017 Chicago Public Schools was among the nation's most improved school systems. Chicago's story embeds many lessons about system change. Sharon Greenberg and Anthony S. Bryk illustrate…

The Cognitive Acceleration (or Let's Think) approach to mathematics teaching is a Piagetian programme drawing on Vygotsky's research, developed at King's College London over 30 years ago, along with its associated professional development (PD) programme. This project sought to replicate the original studies conducted 10-15 years earlier and before…

As an early Common Core booster, Michael Petrilli had hoped that by now--10 years after most states adopted the standards--the nation's schools would have logged tangible improvements in teaching and learning that resulted in higher student achievement. In this article, Petrilli reviews what Common Core is and discusses the work ahead that is…

Whole-school reforms have received widespread attention, but a critical limitation of the current literature is the lack of evidence around whether these extensive and costly interventions improve students' long-term outcomes after they leave reform schools. Leveraging Tennessee's statewide turnaround reforms, we use difference-in-differences…

Education standards do not flop spectacularly. Their failure gives rise to nothing like the black-and-white films of early aeronautical experiments: no missiles exploding on launch pads or planes tumbling from the sky. But 10 years after 46 of the 50 states adopted the Common Core standards, the lack of evidence that they have improved student…