WestEd has made substantial progress on the evidence of promise study for Clark County School District's (CCSD) 2017 Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) grant. WestEd collected the necessary student-level test score, course credit, and demographic data from CCSD for the study to identify statistically significant or substantively important…

The current quasi-experimental design study explored how students' choice of learning location model (either predominantly remote or hybrid) impacted their outcomes on academic assessments, school day attendance, and chronic absence in the 2020-2021 school year in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analyzing the student sample across three middle…

In this study we evaluated the stability of item parameters and student scores, using the pre-equated (pre-pandemic) parameters from Spring 2019 and post-equated (post-pandemic) parameters from Spring 2021 in two calibration and equating designs related to item parameter treatment: re-estimating all anchor parameters (Design 1) and holding the…

There is a longstanding debate over how to evaluate teachers. Various models of teacher evaluation tools including observations, teaching artifacts, or frequent walkthroughs, provide evidence of daily classroom performance. Although there are questions on the most efficient means by which to complete evaluations, most agree evaluative tools must…

The topic for this dissertation was the effects arts have on standardized test scores of math. The research problem compared the students who had fine arts integrated into the curriculum and those that did not. This study included six target schools that have primarily African American students. The six-city schools studied were the third through…

This explanatory sequential mixed methods study sought to understand the influences of teaching experience on perceptions of autonomy and competence on 7th through 12th grade English language arts teachers' text selection decisions through a survey and interviews. The findings of this explanatory sequential design survey study could affirm…

At least one student in every average classroom will probably have had a traumatic experience prior to the age of 18. These students do not know when the resulting trauma will surface, and it could be in many forms and as a result of any kind of trigger. To enhance student learning, it is better to have an environment that promotes safety and…

The present study tested the postulation that "knowledge begets reading, which begets knowledge." Using Random Intercepts Cross-Lagged Panel Models (RI-CLPM), we analyzed a U.S. nationally representative data set to examine the directionality and magnitude of the longitudinal relation between domain knowledge (operationalized as science…

This dissertation uses practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, 2009), narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 1990; Rolling & Bey, 2016; Schaafsma & Vinz, 2011; Toliver, 2020a), composite character counter storytelling (Baker-Bell, 2020), and critical discourse analysis (Bloome et al., 2008; Bloome & Power-Carter,…

Background: Reading is a vital skill, key to school success, necessary for employment, and essential for functioning in everyday life. Many attempts to increase literacy have focused on schools, yet "out of school" factors have a substantial impact on student learning (Clabaugh, 2008). One non-instructional factor that may be part of…

Following the racial unrest of 2020, anti-racist rhetoric from K-12 schools and university teacher education institutes magnified. Despite claiming alliance with anti-racism, it became unclear whether the actions of teacher education, both in-service and pre-service, matched their rhetoric. To determine how, if at all, teacher education informs…

The problem explored in this study was the low achievement of third grade students on the English Language Arts (ELA) Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers Assessment (PARCC). The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore teacher perceptions about third grade students in one charter school who were…

This work focuses on the lived experiences of 16 adolescent Palestinian boys who live in the Qalandia refugee camp under Israeli occupation in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. This work examines the boys' engagement in Playback Theater, which is "an interactive form of improvisational theatre in which audience members tell stories from…

This article will approach issues related to the teaching of the concept of citizenship according to Higher School of Education of the Polytechnic Institute of Viana do Castelo, Portugal. Through the analysis of artistic practices, we propose to determine how concepts of culture, heritage, education for development, service learning and human…

Mark Woodward, a music teacher at Montessori Academy, in Brentwood, Tennessee, wrote a musical based on Dr. Montessori's early life and work with the help of his wife and students. It was performed in May 2018, and the response was wonderful. Seven local Montessori schools brought their students to see it, and several groups are looking into…