This article examines Teach For America's (TFA) placement strategy in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, in which large numbers of TFA corps members are placed as clusters into a targeted set of disadvantaged schools, to investigate whether the large-scale infusion of TFA corps members into these schools induced broader improvements across the…

Expansion of the use of student test score data to measure teacher performance has fueled recent policy interest in using those data to measure the effects of school administrators as well. However, little research has considered the capacity of student performance data to uncover principal effects. Filling this gap, this article identifies…

In accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2001, 100% of students were expected to become proficient on state assessments of reading and mathematics by the end of 2013-2014 academic year. Schools that consistently failed to meet the NCLB's Adequate Yearly Progress requirements were subject to penalties. In 2011, the U.S.…

The quantitative study contained herein was conducted to determine if there is a relationship between antibias education (ABE) and student performance on state standardized tests in a South Florida school district. In many districts, raising test scores has become priority with some schools even changing their curriculum so that teachers teach…

This empirical mixed methods study examines educators' understandings of student risk factors. The research was conducted in a Title 1 combination middle high school in the Florida panhandle that had been open for three years and had received a grade of F school in each of these years. In Florida, schools are graded according to the Florida…

Teachers' perceptions of their school leaders influence student achievement in their schools. The extent of this influence is examined in this study. This quantitative study examined teachers' perceptions of the leadership style of their principals as transformational, transactional or passive-avoidant in improving and non-improving schools in…

Florida schools consistently fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress [AYP] (FDOE, 2005d). Title I schools which serve poor and predominately students of color comprise the majority of schools designated as needing improvement in Florida. Black and Hispanic students, students with disabilities, and English language learners overwhelmingly perform…

Miami-Dade County Public Schools invested in an intensive, three-year program to improve the learning of students in its 39 lowest-performing schools. Known as the Zone, these schools experienced mixed success, with elementary schools reducing the gap between various groups of students while middle and high schools were less successful. However,…

A major debate among education reformers over how best to reduce the achievement gap broke out during the 2008 presidential campaign. Most advocates on both sides backed Barack Obama, but they urged him to pursue different policies. The Education Equality Project (EEP) supported a continuation of accountability and other school-focused reforms.…

The purpose of this descriptive, post hoc single case study was to understand how the five components of Teddlie and Stringfield's (1993) school effectiveness model manifested themselves in school improvements efforts. This study used Teddlie and Stringfield (1993) five component school effectiveness conceptual model (focus on academics, orderly…

The importance of the beliefs and attitudes of teachers and building-level administrators in achieving school reform has come to be widely acknowledged. As University of Wisconsin professor Kent Peterson put it: "You can implement a good-quality improvement plan and knowledgeable, data-driven decision making, but if the [staff] doesn't…

How has No Child Left Behind (NCLB) affected you, your students, or your school? Educational Leadership wanted to know so we asked readers to tell us their stories. Some respondents questioned whether NCLB acknowledged the true purpose of education, many bemoan the seeming necessity of having to "teach to the test," and some have…

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…

Schools face major challenges today that have been created by reform initiatives and expectations from Florida and federal legislation. This article focuses on the impact of accountability mandates on student achievement through the responses of central Florida school administrators at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. They were…

This article focusses on defining the Parent Academy. The Parent Academy is a deeply ambitious, privately funded project aimed at improving students' education by improving their parents'. Since Miami-Dade County Public Schools superintendent Rudy Crew launched it last year, TPA has reached tens of thousands of parents through hundreds of free…