The number of low-performing schools has drastically increased since COVID-19. During the 2018-2019 school year, there were 488 low-performing schools (North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2024). The number increased to 736 schools during the 2023- 2024 school year, a 50.8% increase (North Carolina Department of Public Instruction,…

We examine effects of the pandemic on student attendance, course grades, and grade retention in North Carolina in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 using descriptive and regression analyses. We find each outcome worsened on average in 2020-2021, with larger changes at the high end of the absence distribution, the low end of the grade distribution, and among…

Policy makers periodically consider using student assignment policies to improve educational outcomes by altering the socio-economic and academic skill composition of schools. We exploit the quasi-random reassignment of students across schools in the Wake County Public School System to estimate the academic and behavioral effects of being…

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on students' experiences in school were widespread. Early research show reductions in test scores across grade levels and student groups. This study extends research evidence to additional student outcomes -- absences, course grades, and grad retention -- and to examine how pandemic effects are distributed…

We examine effects of the pandemic on student attendance, course grades, and grade retention in North Carolina in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 using descriptive and regression analyses. We find each outcome worsened on average in 2020-2021, with larger changes at the high end of the absence distribution, the low end of the grade distribution, and among…

Many colleges and universities nationwide use midterm grades to provide feedback to students about their academic performance at the midpoint of a course. In recent years, registrars have been challenged to collect accurate midterm grades. Numerous factors contribute to the challenge of collecting accurate assessments. This constellation of…

Context: The use of educational technology for improving K-12 math education has expanded dramatically recently. ASSISTments (Heffernan & Heffernan, 2014), a widely used digital platform, has seen its use in schools increase significantly from 800 to 20,000 teachers over the past two years. A review of evidence-based online programs by the…

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of Equal Opportunity Schools on high school minority achievement in Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) courses. The 48% of students in this research study were identified as minority students, which means they were identified as non-white or African American/Black,…

The United States (US) does not formally count, recognize, or support students in higher education who are caregivers, unlike England and Australia. This mixed-methods study presents results from a new survey of caregiving undergraduate and graduate students at a large university in the US. Students (N = 7592; 62.7% White, 69.9% women) reported…

Researchers explored how 13 states in which policymakers have adopted an A-F school letter grade accountability system performed on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) post-policy implementation. Researchers found mixed results, with approximately half of these 13 states increasing achievement post-policy, and the other…

This report focuses on a competency-based grading initiative at Carroll Middle School. The initiative was implemented from 2018-19 to 2020-21 to address the lack of alignment between report card grades and End-of-Grade (EOG) test results and was designed to ensure consistent delivery of standards-based instruction, formative assessment, and…

It is both important and challenging to assess transfer of skills learned through coursework and related organizational and societal contributions. The author describes an action research study to determine the effectiveness of a doctoral course in program evaluation. Using Kirkpatrick's (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2006) four-level evaluation…

Using a multimethod approach, we investigate whether gender gaps in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) major declaration in college are explained by differences in the grades that students earn in STEM versus non-STEM subjects. With quantitative data, we find that relative advantages in college academic performance in STEM…

We contribute to the school start time literature by using statewide student-level data from North Carolina to estimate start time effects for all students and for traditionally disadvantaged students. Descriptively, we found that urban high schools were likely to start very early or late. Later start times were associated with positive student…

We hypothesized that the intellectual development of students, i.e., their beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning, affects their intrinsic motivation and class performance. Specifically, we hypothesized that students with low intellectual development (i.e., the naive beliefs that knowledge is simple, absolute, and certain) have low…