In this report, the authors present the results of a long-term tracking study that follows 1,177 students who applied to enter 1 of 13 oversubscribed Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) middle schools through a 5th or 6th grade admissions lottery in 2008 or 2009. Those students are now old enough to have attended college for at least two years. This…

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the implementation and impact of the IDEA Public Schools' Mathematics Curriculum Redesign (MCR) effort, funded by an Innovation and Research (EIR) grant. Methods: The study used a quasi-experimental matching design to examine the effect of MCR on student achievement outcomes. The study compared…

Strategic Reading and Writing (SRW) is a reading and writing intervention course available to sixth- through tenth-grade students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) who did not meet Grade Level standards on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) grades 3-8 reading the previous school year or who fell below the…

Dyslexia is considered a learning disorder characterized by difficulty in learning to read, write, and spell despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and sociocultural opportunities (TEC§38.003 cited in Texas Education Agency, 2014). The Texas Education Code (TEC) §38.003 makes provision for the evaluation and identification of…

In May of 2012, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved the creation of the Secondary Reading Initiative (SRI) program to target students in the 6th and 9th grades who are reading below the 50th percentile as measured by the Stanford/Aprenda Achievement Test in the previous year. The district provided to have…

Beginning with the 2012-2013 school year, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved the creation of the Secondary Reading Initiative (SRI) for 6th and 9th grade students. In the 2013-2014 school year, the SRI program was expanded to include students in the 7th grade. Students in the 6th, 7th, and 9th grades, whose…

The POWERSOURCE[c] intervention is intended as a generalizable and powerful formative assessment strategy that can be integrated with any mathematics curriculum. POWERSOURCE[c] includes both a system of learning-based assessments and an infrastructure to support teachers' use of those assessments to improve student learning. The core undertaking…

This study examines the effects of Connected Mathematics Project 2 (CMP2) on grade 6 student mathematics achievement and engagement using a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) design. It responds to a need to improve mathematics learning in the Mid-Atlantic Region (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC). Findings…

"Thinking Reader" is a software program for students in Grades 5-8 that incorporates elements commonly identified in policy reports as being key components of effective adolescent literacy instruction. This evaluation of the impact of "Thinking Reader" use by Grade 6 students focused on two confirmatory research questions about…

Extending the school day through programs that will supplement core courses, such as offering intensive, after-school tutoring or small-group study sessions in reading and mathematics, is one method districts use to boost school performance and narrow educational achievement gaps between students of different racial and economic backgrounds (Redd…

This report is a follow-up to "Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades" (Williams, Kirst, Haertel, et al., 2010). That study specified a comprehensive set of actionable practices that differentiated higher academic achievement among 303 middle grades schools in California. In doing so, the study provided a compelling and coherent account of…

Community School District 23 (CSD 23) in Region 5 of the New York City public schools serves students who reside in central Brooklyn. The district enrolls approximately 12,800 students in grades K-8 in 18 schools. Scholastic READ 180 is one of several reading interventions that the district is using to improve student performance. The staff of…