In alignment with the Academic Excellence pillar of the Strategic Plan, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is committed to improving student achievement in literacy. MCPS initially piloted a Structured Literacy approach in Kindergarten-Grade 2 during the 2021-2022 school year. Due to the pilot's success in improving student outcomes, MCPS…

The Skills Imperative 2035 is a five-year strategic research programme, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which is investigating future skills needs, skills supply and skill development, with a particular focus on the 'Essential Employment Skills' (EES) that are projected to be most vital across the labour market in 2035. The focus in this stage…

Background and context: High-dosage in-person tutoring is a popular intervention with proven effects. However, its utility is at least partially limited by concerns regarding implementation at scale (Groom-Thomas et al., 2023; Kraft et al., 2021). Technology may mediate these concerns by remotely connecting students to tutors, thereby reducing…

In Winter 2021-2022, the Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System (NSCAS) assessments are administered in ELA and mathematics in Grades 3-8. In Spring 2021-2022, the NSCAS assessments are administered in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in Grades 3-8 and in science in Grades 5 and 8. The purposes of the NSCAS assessments are to…

This three-article dissertation considers the pedagogical practices for developing statistically literate students and teaching data-driven decision-making with the goal of preparing students for civic engagement and improving student achievement. The first article discusses a critical review of the literature on data-driven decision-making…

Background: Observation Studies, Unmeasured Confounding, and Sensitivity Analysis: An important part of educational research is identifying important, potentially causal, factors that influence children's learning from observational studies. However, it is well-known that discovering such factors from observational studies can be biased due to…

Our 2023-24 Sponsorship Annual Report details our work providing monitoring, oversight, and technical assistance to ten schools across sixteen campuses that served approximately 6,300 students in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Portsmouth, Ohio. We value this opportunity to share details about our work, and that of the schools that we sponsor.…

The primary aims of this study were twofold: (a) to describe average change in the written narrative performance of second grade students from the fall and spring of the school year and (b) examine patterns of individual growth to test for Matthew effects. Participants included 299 children in second grade. Microstructural measures were derived…

Evolving technologies have changed the ways people read and exchange information, whether at home, at school or in the workplace. When PISA assessed 15-year-olds' reading literacy for the first time, in 2000, only in two countries -- Canada and Norway -- did more than 50% of the population use the Internet. In 2009, about 15% of students in OECD…

Academic progress monitoring is essential when implementing Individualized Education Programs for students with learning disabilities and more generally in a multi-tiered system of supports framework. Although students' progress is monitored frequently in schools today, these students often are not actively involved in this practice. Research has…

The present study employed population-level educational records from 4 public school student cohorts (n = 112,916; Grades 7-12) in British Columbia (Canada) to examine relationships between music education (any participation, type of participation, music achievement, and engagement level) and mathematics and science achievement in Grade 10 as well…

We estimate the effects of accountability-driven school closure in New York City on students who attended middle schools that were closed at the time of closure and students who would have likely attended a closed middle school had it remained open. We find that students who would have entered the closed school had it not closed attended schools…

Purpose: To present a pilot study that uses experiential learning theory to understand the effect of a Move to Read (MTR) program on student performance on a sight word test. Methods: Two groups in a school were compared. The academic struggling students (n = 37) received MTR activities in the classroom and physical education, whereas the regular…

The Every Student Succeeds Act requires that states make efforts to offer statewide achievement tests in languages, other than English, that are present to a significant extent in the state. Currently, four states offer Spanish reading or language arts assessments as part of their statewide testing program. In these states, practitioners may be…

Reading literacy is regarded as one of the most crucial prerequisites for academic success in all fields. PISA surveys reading literacy with extensive demographic data in several countries to provide detailed feedback for detecting problems in their education systems. In many countries, bilingual students are facing several problems in schools,…