Public health relies on sample surveys to monitor the health of populations and investigate factors that contribute to population health and illness. Such investigations require surveying individuals who are selected in ways that support statistical inference to the population. Faced with rising costs and declining participation, survey…

Evaluations of educational programs or interventions are typically conducted in nonrandomly selected samples of schools or districts. Recent research has shown that nonrandom site selection can yield biased impact estimates. To estimate the external validity bias from nonrandom site selection, we combine lists of school districts that were…

Recently, studies have adopted fixed effects modeling to identify the returns to college. This method has the advantage over ordinary least squares estimates in that unobservable, individual-level characteristics that may bias the estimated returns are differenced out. But the method requires extensive longitudinal data and involves complex…

Rural districts have long faced challenges in closing achievement gaps between subgroups of students. This brief report describes key decision points and considerations for decision-makers interested in identifying rural districts that have closed academic achievement gaps. Examining practices in these districts may suggest activities associated…

The purpose of this study is to address how spaces in school and out of school support or constrain undocumented Latina/o youths' development as critical multicultural citizens. We draw on data from a multi-phase, qualitative study to present findings indicating that the youths persevered through academic and civic engagement. Ultimately, the…

This qualitative, grounded theory study investigated teacher perspectives on the relationship between executive function and reading aptitude. The influence of executive function may be underestimated in terms of its impact on reading aptitude, which could have significant implications on how reading aptitude is currently defined. The foundational…

Care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRISs) have advanced and matured, a number of states and localities have undertaken evaluations to validate the systems. Such efforts stem from the desire to ensure that the system is designed and operating in the ways envisioned when the system was established. Given that a central component in a QRIS…

Communities That Care (CTC) is a prevention system designed to reduce adolescent substance use and delinquency through the selection of effective preventive interventions tailored to a community's specific profile of risk and protection. A community-randomized trial of CTC, the Community Youth Development Study, is currently being conducted in 24…

The Colorado Council for Library Development commissioned a state survey to facilitate long range library planning. A survey was designed by Colorado Market Research Services, Inc. and directed to adults throughout the state to ascertain the information needs of the sample population. Citizens were queried as to the frequency of their library use,…

The procedures and results of a pilot program in a statewide assessment of learning in Colorado are presented. Findings and conclusions of the project in which the Common Status Measures of the U.S. Office of Education were administered to 12,000 pupils in 31 school districts concurrently with objectives-referenced items developed by the Colorado…