Many states and districts offer full-day kindergarten (FDK) to provide additional time for student learning in the hope that it will improve student outcomes. Prior research has shown an association between FDK and gains in student outcomes such as math and reading standardized ... » more info

Impact Study

Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis is a statistical modeling approach that uses quantitative data to predict future outcomes by generating decision trees. CART analysis can be useful for educators to inform their decisionmaking. For example, educators can use a decision ... » more info

Tools

California requires each school district to belong to a Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) for special education planning and governance. The California Department of Education (CDE) and the State Board of Education (SBE) are interested in the impact on the surrounding small and ... » more info

Descriptive Study

In Virginia, there has been a long-term effort to increase the number of graduates who earn career and technical education (CTE) credentials. These CTE credentials are intended to provide high school graduates with additional preparation for college and careers. In 2013, the Virginia ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This guide is designed to help district and school site leaders assess the professional learning needs of elementary school teachers to implement research-based recommendations for the instruction of English learner students. It comprises two tools—the Teacher Self-Reflection Tool and ... » more info

Tools

The departure of an effective school leader can influence staff turnover and student achievement for several years. With school systems facing an unprecedented public health crisis due to COVID-19, principal retention is a key area of concern for many local and state education ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the education of students in Illinois and around the nation. Leaders at the Illinois State Board of Education and in Illinois public school districts want to better understand how student learning changed during the pandemic. This study examines data ... » more info

Descriptive Study

New York State is experiencing teacher shortages in specific subject areas. One way to address these shortages is through the certification and placement of new teachers. This study explored the pathways through which new teachers between 2015/16 and 2017/18 earned certificates, their ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

New York State is experiencing teacher shortages in specific subject areas. One way to address these shortages is for certified teachers to earn additional certificates qualifying them to fill positions in shortage areas. This study explored patterns in how experienced teachers (those ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

A large proportion of high schools across the country have adopted education and career planning requirements intended to help students prepare for postsecondary education and to facilitate successful transitions to the labor market. This study used student and counselor survey ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study examined the impacts of structured relationship-building teacher home visits conducted in grades 1–5 as part of a family engagement program in the District of Columbia Public Schools. Using a matched comparison group research design, the study measured the impacts of the ... » more info

Impact Study

The Community Math Night Facilitators’ Toolkit is a detailed resource for elementary school educators to plan and implement a Community Math Night event. Community Math Nights use interactive math activities to engage families in building positive math attitudes, facilitate their ... » more info

Tools

In 2015 Oregon became the second state in the country to implement a statewide promise program. Its program, Oregon Promise, seeks to promote students' postsecondary attainment by covering nearly all community college tuition. This study used student data from K–12 public ... » more info

Impact Study

To improve educator diversity and address educator shortages, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) awards grants to universities in the state to develop and implement teacher and principal residency preparation programs. The programs must offer aspiring teachers and ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Middle school is an important crossroad in a student’s academic journey. As students enter middle school, their academic achievement and engagement frequently declines. This is true particularly for Black and Latinx students. Poor middle school grades are often a harbinger of poor ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Georgia instituted a flexibility policy in 2007 that provided districts with waivers from state education rules, provisions, and guidelines. In exchange, schools must meet academic performance targets. The performance contracts are meant to encourage schools and districts to implement ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Program evaluation is important for assessing the implementation and outcomes of local, state, and federal programs. The Program Evaluation Toolkit provides resources and tools to support users in contributing to evaluations of their own programs. The primary audience for the toolkit ... » more info

Tools

Predicting incoming enrollment is an ongoing concern for the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) and similar districts with school choice systems, substantial student mobility, or both. Inaccurate predictions can disrupt learning as districts adjust to enrollment fluctuations by ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This report provides information for administrators in local education agencies who are considering early warning systems to identify at-risk students. Districts use early warning systems to target resources to the most at-risk students and intervene before students drop out. Schools ... » more info

Descriptive Study

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic led to an unprecedented and abrupt stoppage of in-person learning in schools across the country. State education agency leaders in Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming needed information on proposed strategies in districts' remote learning ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Few elementary students on the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) are scoring at grade level or higher on the ACT Aspire reading assessment. To better understand factors associated with the reading proficiency of CNMI grade 3 students, stakeholders there asked the ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Statewide teacher shortages are hindering Michigan's efforts to ensure that all students have equitable access to qualified teachers. Implementing teacher supports—which may be policies, practices, or programs—to increase teacher retention offers a way to alleviate ... » more info

Descriptive Study

A large urban school district wanted to understand how its first-year teacher mentoring program might better support the district goals of increasing retention and maintaining a diverse workforce. This study investigated new teachers' participation in that program; how participation ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

Chicago Public Schools is working to improve early literacy outcomes through a multiyear professional development initiative for preK–2 teachers. The P–2 Balanced Literacy Initiative aims to improve literacy instruction by training teachers to implement effective early literacy ... » more info

Descriptive Study

In recent years Rhode Island's Providence Public School District (PPSD) has put initiatives in place to reduce high chronic absenteeism. This study explored attendance supports aimed at reducing chronic absenteeism that PPSD schools implemented in the 2018/19 school year. Although some ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

In 2017 the Minnesota Department of Human Rights identified 43 local education agencies in the state as being in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act for their use of exclusionary discipline practices (suspensions, exclusions, and expulsions) at higher rates for American Indian ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study estimated the promotion power of public high schools in the District of Columbia. Promotion power is a measure of school effectiveness that distinguishes a school’s contributions to student outcomes from the contributions of the background characteristics of the students it ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Created in 2016, Alaska's Pre-Elementary Grants (PEGs) allow school districts to design, develop, and expand affordable and accessible preschool in their communities. PEGs aim, in particular, to serve historically disadvantaged students. This study aimed to help Alaska stakeholders ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Although Oregon has made recent gains in its overall high school graduation rate, 21 percent of public school students entering grade 9 in 2014 did not graduate within four years, by 2018. To improve graduation rates, Oregon voters approved Ballot Measure 98 in 2016 to fund dropout ... » more info

Impact Study

Many states seek to increase the education levels of their early childhood education (ECE) workforce to improve the quality of care for children. Oregon encourages all ECE workforce members to sign up for a career lattice, a career pathway system that helps them determine goals related ... » more info

Impact Study

Since 2014 the New Jersey Department of Education has offered three high school equivalency (HSE) exams for nongraduates seeking credentials: the GED, the High School Equivalency Test (HiSET), and the Test Assessing Secondary Completion (TASC). This study used data on exam takers who ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) has prioritized efforts to support students' social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies, such as perseverance and social awareness. To measure students' SEL competencies and the school experiences that promote SEL competencies ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory partnered with the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to explore the potential use of teacher surveys in school leader evaluation. The DCPS evaluation system, like many others, currently consists of two components: an assessment ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study addressed the need expressed by education stakeholders in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to better understand their high school students' social-emotional competencies and how those competencies might be associated with students' academic and behavioral ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia researchers developed the Cost-Feasibility Analysis (CFA) Toolkit to help education leaders estimate whether implementing supplemental online programs is affordable given a school or district's available resources. The CFA Toolkit guides users ... » more info

Tools

Education policymakers view transparency and accountability as critical to the success of schools. To support these goals, the District of Columbia Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) has developed an online school report card for communicating information about the ... » more info

Impact Study

Children entering kindergarten vary greatly in their language and literacy skills. Therefore, up-to-date information about evidence-based practices is essential for early childhood educators and policymakers as they support preschool children's language and literacy development. This ... » more info

Systematic Literature Review

Policymakers and educators on Guåhan (Guam) are concerned about the persistent shortage of qualified K–12 teachers. Staff at the Unibetsedåt Guåhan (University of Guam, UOG) School of Education, the only local university that offers a teacher training and ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Education policymakers must balance the reliability of assessments to measure academic knowledge and skills with the burdens that assessments place upon students, teachers, and schools. In 2019, New Jersey began using the New Jersey Student Learning Assessments (NJSLA), shorter ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Although national assessments for evaluating teacher candidates are available, some state education agencies and education preparation programs have developed their own assessments. These locally developed assessments are based on observations of teaching and other artifacts such as ... » more info

Descriptive Study

To support school improvement efforts, school leaders and education agencies might need to identify groups of schools that are similar so that schools can compare their performance or share practices with other schools in the same group. This could also allow education agencies to ... » more info

Tools

As of 2010, about 15 percent of residents older than age 25 on Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) had completed an associate degree or higher. To increase the number of college graduates, the Pohnpei Department of Education and the College of Micronesia–FSM are ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The number and percentage of students of color are growing in Washington state, yet the teacher workforce remains largely White (non-Hispanic). This means that few students of color have teachers who share their race or ethnicity, which could have consequences for student achievement ... » more info

Descriptive Study

In Indiana and Minnesota the state education agency, state higher education agency, and the state workforce agency have collaborated to develop career and technical education courses intended to improve high school students' college and career readiness. These agencies partnered with ... » more info

Impact Study

Arkansas has identified college and career readiness indicators for schools that can be used to monitor students' performance and to improve their postsecondary readiness and success. Using two cohorts of grade 6 students, this study examined the extent to which Arkansas’s middle ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study examined participation in accelerated college credit programs dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and Advanced Placement courses in Rhode Island high schools to understand their effects on educational attainment in the 2013/14 grade 9 cohort. The state, which has funded ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

By providing students with an opportunity to take college courses and earn college credits while in high school, dual enrollment programs effectively increase college access, enrollment, and degree attainment. Such programs might be particularly beneficial for high school students who ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This report examines the population of Alaska Native students who are classified as English learner (EL) students and how EL policies function for these students, focusing on EL identification, classification, service provision, and reclassification as fluent English proficient. Alaska ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education supports low-performing schools through a process that draws on qualitative and quantitative data from monitoring visits. The data are used to produce ratings for 26 turnaround indicators in four turnaround practice ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

Education leaders in Nebraska and South Dakota partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Central to examine how completing a sequence of career and technical education (CTE) courses in high school affects students' rates of on-time high school graduation and their rates of ... » more info

Impact Study

Louisiana's Believe and Prepare pilot program, supported by grants from the Louisiana Department of Education, aimed to prepare teacher candidates or in-service teachers through a residency with a mentor and a competency-based curriculum. To improve teacher preparation and teacher ... » more info

Descriptive Study

To inform a plan for supporting students with health conditions, District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic on a study to understand how the prevalence of health conditions differs by student characteristics, whether ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This applied research methods report is a guide for state and local education agency policymakers and their analysts who are interested in studying teacher mobility and retention. This report provides the foundational information needed to answer policy-relevant research questions ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

This applied research methods report is a guide for state and local education agency policymakers and their analysts who are interested in studying teacher mobility and retention. This report is the second in a two-part set and builds on the foundational information in report 1. This ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

This Third Grade Teacher's Guide provides information for third grade teachers on how to support families as they practice foundational reading skills at home. It serves as a companion to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for ... » more info

Tools

Statewide teacher shortages in Michigan are impeding efforts to ensure all students equitable access to qualified teachers. To alleviate shortages, education leaders have considered recruiting certified teachers who are not currently teaching (both those who have never taught and those ... » more info

Descriptive Study

To expand participation in Advanced Placement (AP) courses, several District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) high schools have enacted a policy mandating that all students enroll in one or more AP courses. To promote quality instruction in AP courses, DCPS recommends regular teacher ... » more info

Descriptive Study

On Guåhan (Guam), the large percentages of students enrolling in non-credit-bearing courses at Kulehon Kumunidåt Guåhan (Guam Community College) and Unibetsedåt Guåhan (University of Guam) have raised concerns about college readiness and early college ... » more info

Descriptive Study

District leaders in a large urban school district in central Florida wanted to examine the efficacy of a new curriculum designed to enhance the word knowledge of grade 5 students so as to improve reading achievement. The new curriculum, called Word Knowledge Instruction (WKI), consists ... » more info

Impact Study

This resource supports state and local education agencies in identifying, comparing, and contrasting survey scales that measure a variety of civic readiness categories. It describes the format and structure of survey scales, details the civic readiness categories measured by the ... » more info

Tools

Staff turnover is a pressing problem in early childhood education. High turnover can create organizational instability and distract from the care and education mandate of early childhood education centers. The Early Childhood Workforce Development Research Alliance of the Regional ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

This tool is intended to support state and local education agencies in developing a statistical model for estimating student postsecondary success at the school or district level. The tool guides education agency researchers, analysts, and decisionmakers through options to consider ... » more info

Tools

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private voucher schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships. This study identified the type of high school enrollment among students enrolled in grade 9 in ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The purpose of this study was to examine college readiness and early college success of students who graduated from Republic of the Marshall Islands high schools and enrolled at the College of the Marshall Islands between 2015 and 2017. It also examined the relationships between ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The purpose of this study was to develop a framework that can be used to evaluate the implementation of networked improvement communities (NICs) in public prekindergarten (PK)–12 education and to apply this framework to the formative evaluation of the Minnesota Alternative ... » more info

Tools

The Early Childhood Data Use Assessment Tool is designed to identify and improve data use skills among early childhood education (ECE) program staff so they can better use data to inform, plan, monitor, and make decisions for instruction and program improvement. Data use is critical in ... » more info

Tools

Leaders at the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and the Indiana Department of Education are concerned about teacher shortages and want a better understanding of the educator pipeline for Indiana's K–12 public schools. This study examined the characteristics and outcomes ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The College Instructor’s Guide is designed to assist college instructors build pre-service teacher knowledge of evidence-based strategies to help kindergarten through grade 3 students acquire the language and literacy skills needed to succeed academically. This tool is intended to be ... » more info

Tools

In an effort to increase access to high-quality prekindergarten (preK) programs for all of Vermont’s young children, Vermont passed universal preK legislation in 2014 (Act 166). All 3- and 4-year-old children have access to 10 hours a week of state-funded preK through a mixed-delivery ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

This study examined the extent to which Texas high school graduates, particularly graduates in small districts and rural districts, met college, career, and military readiness (CCMR) accountability standards. The study also examined whether graduates who did not meet CCMR ... » more info

Descriptive Study

In 2018, a small elementary school district in California introduced school-based telemedicine services for K–6 students to address the health, well-being, and attendance challenges that can interfere with school success. During the first two years of implementation, about a quarter of ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Meeting the unique educational and social needs of newcomer students (students who were born outside of the United States and have arrived in the country within the past three years) is an ongoing challenge for educators and community stakeholders across the country. This resource ... » more info

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine the college success of students who graduated from Palau High School between spring 2013 and spring 2015 and who enrolled at Palau Community College the fall semester immediately following their high school graduation. It also examined the ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Oregon has enacted policy reforms to reduce exclusionary discipline and increase racial equity in school discipline practices. One such reform passed in 2015 limits the use of exclusionary discipline (i.e., removing students from classroom instruction through suspension and expulsion) ... » more info

Descriptive Study

To assess educational progress in the early grades and identify achievement gaps, the Midwest Early Childhood Education Research Alliance examined reading achievement data among students in kindergarten and grade 1 in two districts in Illinois. The study documents overall reading ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This Second Grade Teacher's Guide provides information for second grade teachers on how to support families as they practice foundational reading skills at home. It serves as a companion to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading ... » more info

Tools

Education research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer structures and processes for bridging research and practice and ultimately driving improvements for K-12 outcomes. To date, there is limited literature on how to assess the effectiveness of RPPs. Aligned to the most commonly cited ... » more info

Tools

This Self-study Guide for Evidence-Based Literacy Coaching PreK-Grade 12 was developed to help improve the effectiveness of literacy coaching in order to increase the knowledge, skill, and ability of teachers to implement evidence-based practices. This self-study guide was designed to ... » more info

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the Supporting Teacher Enactment of the Probability and Statistics Standards (STEPSS) program on classroom instruction and student understanding of grade 7 statistics. This randomized controlled trial in 40 Broward County, Florida, ... » more info

Impact Study

Teachers have access to more data than ever before, including summative (state-level), interim (benchmark-level), and formative (classroom-level) assessment data. Yet research on how often and why teachers use each type of these data is scarce. The Nebraska Department of Education ... » more info

Descriptive Study

In Virginia, all high school students can earn either a Standard diploma or an Advanced Studies diploma, the latter being a college preparatory diploma. Starting in 2017, the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) began requiring students graduating with the Standard diploma to earn a ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study of an online high school biology course offered by Florida Virtual School examined the amount of variation in course completion, students’ final exam scores, and time to completion that is attributable to the influence of teachers. This study examined three different student ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Georgia instituted a flexibility policy in 2007 that provided districts with waivers from state education rules, provisions, and guidelines. Granted waivers and annual accountability targets are agreed upon in district performance contracts with the state. The performance contracts are ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Oklahoma offers state-funded prekindergarten (preK) to all 4-year-old children. The Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest Early Childhood Education Research Partnership members in Oklahoma requested more comprehensive evidence on disparities in student participation in ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Addressing teacher shortages has been a persistent concern among leaders in schools, districts, state education agencies, and the federal government. This report describes an approach to identifying patterns of teacher shortages that was collaboratively developed by the Missouri ... » more info

Tools

REL Southeast developed Professional Learning Community: Emergent Literacy to build the capacity of preschool educators to provide 3–5-year-old children evidence-based emergent literacy instruction. Early childhood teachers can help build the foundation to improve emergent literacy ... » more info

Tools

State and school district leaders in Wisconsin are interested in improving educational outcomes among Black students across the state. Implementing culturally responsive practices aims to improve the academic achievement and behavioral outcomes of minority students. Through continued ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Three Arizona school districts surveyed more than 1,200 teachers and more than 24,000 students in grades 3–12 in spring 2019 to better understand the relationship between their teachers’ use of formative assessment practices and their students’ use of self-regulated learning ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Higher education stakeholders often have limited information about the extent to which their institutions serve students with different types of disabilities and the pipeline of students with disabilities from high school to college entry and completion. This study used longitudinal ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the workforce supply in four rural California regions aligned with the occupational demand in “middle-skill” jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree from 2017-2020. The study team ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This self-paced, online course provides educators with detailed information on performance assessment. Through five modules, practitioners, instructional leaders, and administrators will learn foundational concepts of assessment literacy and how to develop, score, and use performance ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

Continuous improvement processes engage key players within a system to focus on a specific problem of practice and, through a series of iterative cycles, test changes, gather data about the changes, and study the potential influence of these changes on outcomes of interest (Bryk et ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine whether and how geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic characteristics of the neighborhood (that is, census tract) in which an early childhood education (ECE) site is located within North Carolina is associated with aspects of the quality of ... » more info

Descriptive Study

In Virginia, 52 percent of students graduated from high school with a college preparatory diploma in 2019. However, 31 percent of economically disadvantaged students and 15 percent of English learner students graduated with a college preparatory diploma. Recognizing the importance of ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This First Grade Teacher's Guide provides information for first grade teachers on how to support families as they practice foundational reading skills at home. It serves as a companion to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC)’s practice guide Foundational Skills to Support ... » more info

Tools

This study investigated the percentage of Round Rock Independent School District (ISD) graduates from 2012/13 through 2017/18 who completed one or more career and technical education (CTE) programs of study and attained outcomes after high school graduation including college ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The purpose of this study was to understand why middle schools in two mid-Atlantic states were apparently disproportionately identified for targeted support and improvement (TSI) based on the performance of their students with disabilities (SWD) subgroups. The study used publicly ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study examined data from Connecticut’s induction and mentoring program for beginning teachers, called the Teacher Education and Mentoring (TEAM) Program. The TEAM Program requires beginning teachers to complete five instructional modules, submit reflection papers, and meet with a ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

In 2013 and 2015, Oregon enacted legislation that shifted school discipline policies from a zero-tolerance approach to one that emphasizes preventing behavioral problems and reducing unnecessary suspensions and expulsions. These types of discipline are often referred to as exclusionary ... » more info

Descriptive Study

American Indian communities often bring a deep sense of connection, relationships, and knowledge to their children’s education. However, education research has repeatedly shown that American Indian students trail their peers in achievement, attendance, and postsecondary readiness. ... » more info

Tools

Concerned about the expense of teacher turnover, its disruption to schools and students, and its potential effect on students’ access to effective teachers, the School District of Philadelphia partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic to better understand ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Many states want to better understand the extent to which teachers move across schools or leave the state’s public school system, as teacher turnover can have adverse effects on student achievement and local education budgets (Guin, 2004). Leaders at the Rhode Island Department of ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

Several school districts in Georgia currently use two teacher-administered diagnostic assessments of student mathematical knowledge as part of their multi-tiered system of support in grades K–8. These assessments are the Global Strategy Stage (GloSS; New Zealand Ministry of Education, ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), like other state education agencies and districts, recognizes that a key lever to turning around low-performing schools is the quality of instruction (Hill & Harvey, 2004; Hopkins, Harris, Watling, & Beresford, ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

Educators from Colorado, Missouri, and South Dakota share concerns about changes in school and district leadership. They have expressed interest in better understanding school and district leader mobility and attrition, and related factors. This report describes the proportions of ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study examines how students’ performance on North Carolina’s assessments taken from kindergarten to the beginning of grade 3 predicts reading proficiency at the end of grade 3. The study used longitudinal student-level achievement data for 2014/15–2017/18. The sample consisted of ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This Self-study Guide for Career Readiness in Secondary Schools was developed to help educators plan and implement district and school career readiness practices. It is intended to promote reflection about current strengths and challenges in planning for implementation of career ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study was prompted by the Arizona Department of Education’s interest in learning more about the progress of English learner students toward English proficiency in the early grades. The study examined the English language proficiency and English language arts (ELA) proficiency ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Algebra I is considered a gateway course for advanced math. Consequently, there has been a trend toward enrolling students in Algebra I earlier in the middle grades in order to increase opportunities for students to take more advanced math courses in high school. The challenge for ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Legacy High School in Bismarck Public Schools, North Dakota, personalizes education through flexible time, which allows students to choose how they spend a portion of the school day, outside of their regularly scheduled classes. This report describes how students at Legacy High School ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The Washington State Board of Education recently developed career- and college-ready (CCR) graduation credit requirements that are more aligned with career pathways and with admissions standards at the state’s universities. The requirements took effect for the class graduating in 2019, ... » more info

Descriptive Study

This study provides information to administrators, research offices, and student support offices in local education agencies (LEAs) interested in identifying students who are likely to have near-term academic problems such as absenteeism, suspensions, poor grades, and low performance ... » more info

Descriptive Study

To help students leave high school on a path toward success in the labor market, education policymakers and practitioners often focus on improving career and technical education (CTE) opportunities in high school. Understanding the alignment between high school CTE programs and the ... » more info

Descriptive Study

The purpose of this self-study guide is to help adult literacy education providers collect, organize, and analyze evidence that they can use to improve program performance. It was designed to help educators consider which types of evidence to collect and which components of adult ... » more info

Self-Study Guide

Educators in Tennessee use Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI2), a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS), to help address problems early for students at risk for poor learning outcomes. Tennessee Department of Education officials sought to support schools and districts ... » more info

What's Happening

This tool was developed to assist school leaders in observing specific research-based practices during literacy instruction in grade 4–12 classrooms and students’ independent use or application of those practices. The tool aims to help school leaders conduct brief and frequent ... » more info

Tools

This Kindergarten Teacher's Guide provides information for kindergarten teachers on how to support families as they practice foundational reading skills at home. It serves as a companion to the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in ... » more info

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine the enrollment patterns in Vermont’s universal, mixed-delivery prekindergarten (preK) program and the child characteristics associated with the likelihood of being enrolled in different program types. This study describes the characteristics of ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Descriptive Study

Many states, including Washington, are attempting to address teacher shortages by encouraging limited certificated teachers to become fully certificated. Before investing in efforts to support these teachers as they seek full certification, Washington policymakers want to understand ... » more info

Descriptive Study

Starting in fall 2017, the Illinois State Board of Education required kindergarten teachers to use an observational kindergarten entry assessment called the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey. This study examined whether the measures formed using the assessment data were valid ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

The Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum (ERWC) is a college preparatory English language arts course designed to enhance the abilities of students through rhetorical analyses of compelling issues and interesting texts. In order to inform the organizations that support the ... » more info

What's Happening

This purpose of this resource is to support state and local education agencies in identifying reliable and valid instruments that measure collaboration, perseverance, and self-regulated learning among secondary school students. This resource, developed by the Regional Education ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

This report describes the associations between middle school teacher qualifications and student achievement in Algebra I. The authors used data provided by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Results suggest that the teacher qualification most strongly ... » more info

Making Connections

In Minnesota, as in many other states, not all students have access to the types of educational experiences in high school that are likely to lead to high-paying jobs. If Minnesota policymakers and practitioners are to be well positioned to reduce achievement gaps that lead to ... » more info

What's Happening

State and district leaders in Michigan have described a need for better and more comprehensive information on the existence and extent of teacher shortages within the state of Michigan in recent years and projected into the near future. Michigan has experienced challenges matching the ... » more info

Making Connections

This report describes teacher and school characteristics related to teacher movement within and out of public school systems in Colorado, Missouri, and South Dakota. Stakeholders in each of these states expressed interest in better understanding teacher mobility and attrition and ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to examine how students in Mississippi met their mathematics requirements and the extent to which their mathematics sequence is related to student performance and demographic characteristics such as race and ethnicity. The study used data from the ... » more info

Making Connections

A growing national consensus shows the need for educational systems to prepare students to succeed in working environments and society of the 21st century. Recognizing this need, Iowa school districts have invested in technology to assist in addressing the expectations of the Iowa Core ... » more info

What's Happening

Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) has witnessed an increase in the number of English learner students in grades K–12 over recent years, with students coming from more diverse backgrounds in race/ethnicity, countries of origin, and native language. This requires more ... » more info

Making Connections

REL Southeast developed this facilitator’s guide on the topic of mathematical problem solving for use in professional learning community (PLC) settings. The facilitator’s guide is a set of professional development materials designed to supplement the What Works Clearinghouse practice ... » more info

Facilitator's Guide

This report describes rural and nonrural teacher movement within and out of public school systems in Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota. All four states have high proportions of rural districts and schools. The authors used administrative data provided by state education ... » more info

What's Happening

This study examines the impact of providing parents with an informational brochure about the role of algebra II in college access on students’ grade 11 algebra II completion rates in Texas. One hundred nine schools, covering all 20 Educational Service Center regions in Texas, ... » more info

Making an Impact

Making Connections

Description: In June 2013, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed House Bill (HB) 5—the Foundation High School Program—into law, which changed high school graduation requirements for public school students in Texas. Prior to this, most students were required to complete ... » more info

What's Happening

In partnership with the New Mexico Public Education Department, Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest researchers conducted a statewide experiment in school year 2015/16 to test impacts of a checklist on the feedback conferences principals had with teachers after formal ... » more info

Making an Impact

This study is an exploratory analysis of the enrollment rates of students with individualized education programs (IEPs) in the charter school and traditional school sectors. It also examines factors associated with variation in classification and enrollment rates of students with IEPs ... » more info

Making Connections

What's Happening

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the number of charter schools in New Orleans has rapidly expanded. During the 2012/13 school year—the period covered by this study, of the 85 public schools in New Orleans, 75 were chartered, enrolling more than 84 percent of all public school ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to: examine differences in students' perceptions of their noncognitive skills and school environments by race/ethnicity, and explore whether students' perceptions of their noncognitive skills and school environments were related to three outcomes that have ... » more info

Making Connections

What's Happening

Applied Research Methods

This study sought to identify factors that predict positive STEM-related postsecondary outcomes for students in Texas, and to determine whether the association between predictive factors and outcomes differs between Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students. The research team linked ... » more info

Making Connections

This study examined the time it took for English learner students in Texas public schools to reach key educational outcomes for the first time, including attaining English proficiency and satisfactory performance on reading and mathematics state assessments. The study also estimated ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to explore advanced STEM course offerings in Texas high schools and advanced STEM course taking among high school students to investigate variation in availability and enrollment for different school contexts and student groups. Using statewide ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to examine the data from the 2014/15 pilot implementation of the Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System (T-TESS) in order to understand certain properties of the T-TESS rubric, which consists of 16 dimensions classified within 4 domains of teacher ... » more info

Making Connections

Making Connections

New Mexico students who were in grade 9 in 2009/10 and were expected to graduate in 2013 were the first cohort to be required to meet increased math and science course requirements and to take a new graduation exam. The purpose of this study was to describe graduation exam performance ... » more info

What's Happening

In an effort to promote college and career readiness, the state of New Mexico passed a law in 2008 requiring high school students to complete at least one unit of advanced coursework (for example, Advanced Placement [AP], gifted and talented, honors, and International Baccalaureate ... » more info

What's Happening

What's Happening

This study reports on the academic outcomes of full-time first time freshman seeking associate degrees who entered Northern Marianas College from fall semester 2008 through fall semester 2010. In English, 80.1 percent of these students enrolled in developmental courses; in math, 91 ... » more info

What's Happening

This report examines the college readiness of public high school graduates in the Northern Mariana Islands as measured by whether the graduates were placed in developmental college courses or credit bearing college courses at Northern Marianas College. The study examined the high ... » more info

What's Happening

Early warning systems that use research-based warning signs to identify students at risk of dropping out of high school have emerged as one strategy for improving graduation rates. This study tested the impact of one early warning system, the Early Warning Intervention and Monitoring ... » more info

Making an Impact

The goal of this report is to provide administrators, school psychologists, counselors, special educators, and reading specialists with a summary and analysis of the evidence that supports the use of reading interventions in grades 1–3. The review was limited to studies of Tier 2 ... » more info

What's Known

District leaders and chief state school officers in the Central Region are interested in expanding teacher mentoring in high-need schools. Student achievement continues to lag in high-poverty schools, large numbers of teachers are expected to retire in the near future, and state and ... » more info

Making an Impact

Disproportionate rates of suspension for students of color are a local, state, and national concern. In particular, African American, Hispanic/Latino(a), and American Indian students experience suspensions more frequently than their White peers. Disciplinary actions that remove ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

The purpose of this study was to use growth curve modeling to investigate school-level reading and mathematics achievement trends on the state accountability assessment in Florida, Mississippi, and North Carolina for grades 3–8. In addition, this study investigated school-level ... » more info

Making Connections

This study examined changes in teacher knowledge of early literacy skills and ratings of quality of early literacy skills instruction, student engagement during early literacy skills instruction, and teaching competencies between winter 2014 and fall 2015. During the time frame ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between Puerto Rico's high school characteristics and student graduation rates. The study examines graduation rates for all public high schools for students who started grade 10 in 2010/11 (in Puerto Rico high school begins in ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Making Connections

Tools

What's Happening

The purpose of this report is to share lessons learned by Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest researchers as they worked with educators in Michigan and Minnesota to establish and sustain two networked improvement communities (NICs). A NIC is a type of collaborative research ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this report is to help guide districts in analyzing their own student-level disciplinary data to answer important questions about the use of disciplinary actions. This report, developed in collaboration with the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands Urban ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Applied Research Methods

Since 2014, Florida law has required the 300 elementary schools with the lowest reading performance to provide supplemental reading instruction through an extended school day. This study found that in 2014/15, on average, the lowest performing schools were smaller than other elementary ... » more info

Making Connections

Districts across the nation are seeking ways to increase efficiency by maintaining, if not improving, educational outcomes using fewer resources. One proxy for school district efficiency is an expenditure-to-performance ratio, for example a ratio of per pupil expenditures to student ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Applied Research Methods

This study examined the graduation and dropout rates of current and former English learner students compared to those who had never been English learners in six school districts in the south King County area of Washington state. It also looked at the accuracy of the early warning ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this project was to share the lessons learned about the common challenges that Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest researchers brought to a professional learning community, the strategies they identified to address the challenges, and the tools used to ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the Developing Mathematical Ideas (DMI) professional development program on grade 4 teachers' in-depth knowledge of fractions as well as their students' understanding and proficiency with fractions. The study was conducted during ... » more info

Making an Impact

This study examines the demographics, educational attainment, licensures, and career paths of those who were assistant principals or principals ("school leaders") in North Carolina from 2001/02 through 2003/2004. The career path analyses focus specifically on retention and recruitment. ... » more info

What's Happening

To increase students' postsecondary attainment, many states are promoting accelerated college credit (ACC) options in high school such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and dual-credit courses. This study describes the various ACC options available to Oregon students ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to examine the use and outcomes of quality improvement activities among early childhood education programs participating in the Iowa Quality Rating System (Iowa QRS). The study summarized survey responses from 388 program administrators, describing how ... » more info

Making Connections

This study examined rural–nonrural differences in postsecondary educational expectations and the attainment of expectations for grade 10 students attending rural and nonrural high schools in the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest region and how these differences compare with ... » more info

Making Connections

This study examined whether the Ramp-Up to Readiness program (Ramp-Up) produced impacts on high school students' college enrollment actions and personal college readiness following one year of program implementation. The study also looked at Ramp-Up's impact on more immediate outcomes, ... » more info

Making an Impact

Stakeholders in American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands have identified the college and career readiness of high school graduates as a key concern; however, it has been unclear what data were available to determine student readiness for college and careers. This report examines ... » more info

What's Happening

Formative assessment is a process that engages teachers and students in gathering and using information about what students are learning. This comprehensive and systematic review identifies 22 rigorous studies of the effectiveness of formative assessment interventions among elementary ... » more info

What's Known

This report categorizes and summarizes state laws and regulations relevant to competency based-education. Competency-based education is a system where students must demonstrate mastery of course content to be promoted to the next class or grade rather than spend a prerequisite number ... » more info

What's Happening

Minnesota high school students have the opportunity to take advanced courses that simultaneously earn high school and college credit, yet little is known about what types of students are participating and succeeding in these programs, or their college pathways after high school. This ... » more info

What's Happening

Competency-based education is a system where students must demonstrate mastery of course content to be promoted to the next class or grade, with students allowed to take as much or as little time necessary to achieve a comprehensive understanding of course content, rather than spend a ... » more info

Making Connections

Most state departments of education across the U.S. require or recommend that districts use a home language survey as the first step in a multi-step process for identifying students who qualify for English learner student services. However, existing home language surveys may not reveal ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

This report presents a summary of empirical studies of K–12 online and blended instructional approaches that offer differentiated learning options. In these approaches, instruction is provided in whole or in part online. This report includes studies that examine student ... » more info

What's Known

This study examined whether using a stand-alone intervention outside the core curriculum leads to better outcomes than using the embedded curriculum for small group intervention in grades K–2. Fifty-five schools located across Florida were randomly assigned to stand-alone or ... » more info

Making an Impact

Working closely with the Early Childhood Education Research Alliance and Iowa's Quality Rating System Oversight Committee, Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest developed a new tool—the "I" in QRIS Survey—to help states collect data on the improvement activities and ... » more info

Tools

What's Happening

What's Happening

This study describes high school graduation outcomes for students who entered New York City schools in grade 5 or 6 as English learner students. It uses longitudinal administrative data from New York City public schools to focus on 1,734 students who entered New York City schools and ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Making Connections

The purpose of the report series is to summarize the benefits of social and emotional learning (SEL) in early childhood, and identify the characteristics of SEL interventions that are effective in school contexts. Responding to a need expressed by the Early Childhood Education Research ... » more info

What's Known

The purpose of this report was to determine which Mississippi public schools perform better than could be predicted, considering demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Additionally, this study identified profiles of schools within Mississippi, or groups of schools with similar ... » more info

What's Happening

Districts across the nation are seeking ways to increase efficiency by maintaining, if not improving, educational outcomes using fewer resources. One measure that is sometimes used as a proxy for school district efficiency is an expenditure-to-performance ratio, for example a ratio of ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Applied Research Methods

In 2011, the U.S. Department of Education tightened the credit history standards for obtaining Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students (PLUS). Concerned about the possible effects of this change on historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), REL Mid-Atlantic's HBCU Research ... » more info

What's Happening

Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) collaborated to conduct this study, which examines college enrollment, persistence, and performance for Tennessee's public high school class of 2007 six years after high school graduation. ... » more info

What's Happening

Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia partnered with the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) to conduct this study, which examines college enrollment, persistence, and performance for the MNPS high school class of 2007 six years after high school graduation. The study ... » more info

What's Happening

Can a single postcard sent to guardians help reduce student absenteeism? This randomized controlled trial, conducted in collaboration with the School District of Philadelphia, shows that: (a) a single mail piece that encouraged guardians to improve their student's attendance reduced ... » more info

Making an Impact

The purpose of this report was to determine which South Carolina charter schools performed better than could be predicted, considering demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. This study identified South Carolina charter schools as "beating the odds" when they outperform their ... » more info

What's Happening

Making an Impact

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to catalog the array of strategies Midwest states use to support adult learners' transitions to postsecondary opportunities. Prior research has categorized adult education post-program transition strategies in the U.S. into five broad categories: (1) ... » more info

What's Happening

This rubric was developed in response to a request by Improving Literacy Research Alliance members at the Florida Department of Education to be used in their instructional materials review process. It is a tool for evaluating reading/language arts instructional and intervention ... » more info

Tools

This study examined differences in advanced course enrollment and performance for groups of language minority students and native English speakers in Washington state high schools. With data from more than a million students enrolled in Washington state high schools between 2009/10 and ... » more info

What's Happening

Kentucky offers college preparatory transition courses in mathematics, reading, and English to grade 12 students. These courses are designed as one possible intervention for students who have not met Kentucky’s college readiness benchmarks on the ACT in grade 11. This study uses ... » more info

What's Happening

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands conducted this study using data on public high schools in Puerto Rico from national and territory databases to compare methods for identifying beating-the-odds schools. Schools were identified by two methods, a status method ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Applied Research Methods

Applied Research Methods

This study examined observed and predicted four-year high school graduation rates among native English speakers (students who have never been designated as English learners) and four English learner subgroups in Arizona: long-term English learner students; new English learner students; ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to determine the reliability of a newly-developed hybrid system to measure the implementation of Response to Intervention (RTI), to determine schools’ progress toward implementing RTI; and to determine whether implementation ratings were related to ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to compare American Indian students in grades 6–12 in North Carolina to all other students in the same grades both within the same schools and statewide on student demographics, school characteristics, and education outcomes. The North Carolina State ... » more info

What's Happening

The Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest conducted a study on the mobility of teachers and administrators in public schools within and between Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. This study was the first to examine educator mobility within and among these three states using the ... » more info

Making Connections

What's Happening

Making an Impact

The purpose of this descriptive study was to identify characteristics of charter school leaders in South Carolina, determine how they spend their work hours, understand the time they spend on challenges to their work, and learn who influences their schools' policies. REL Southeast ... » more info

What's Happening

This study describes teacher's experiences with feedback and identifies factors that may influence teachers' use of feedback by examining teachers' perceptions of feedback provided as part of the district's teacher evaluation system. Using data from Regional Educational Laboratory ... » more info

Making Connections

Taking advanced high school courses (for example, honors, Advanced Placement, and dual-credit courses that offer college credits in high school) can help prepare students for postsecondary education and careers. English learner students, however, face unique obstacles to taking ... » more info

Making Connections

This study was designed to inform decisions about the selection and use of five widely-used teacher observation instruments. The purpose was to explore (1) patterns across instruments in the dimensions of instruction that they measure, (2) relationships between teachers' scores in ... » more info

Making Connections

Beginning with 2014 fall semester, developmental education in Florida was made optional for most students. This report compares enrollment and passing rates in developmental reading, writing, and mathematics courses as well as gateway English and mathematics courses for a cohort of ... » more info

What's Happening

This report describes the results of a REL Southeast study comparing short- and longer-term student successes after completion of online credit recovery courses compared to student successes after completion of other credit recovery options, such as traditional face-to-face courses and ... » more info

Making Connections

This report updates a previously published report by projecting California teacher retirements, at the state and county level and by specific teaching fields, during the period from 2014/15 through 2023/24. Teacher retirement projections are based on the current ages of teachers and ... » more info

What's Happening

This descriptive study analyzed teacher characteristics, such as age, race, and gender and teachers' evaluation outcomes in a large, urban district in the Northeast. Descriptive analyses of frequencies were conducted to examine the characteristics, summative performance ratings, and ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

This study was designed to describe patterns in reclassification from English learner to English proficient, how the patterns changed over time as students spent more time in New York City (NYC) schools, and how reclassification patterns differed by specific student characteristics. ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Making Connections

Making Connections

This study examined how many public schools nationwide used kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs), and for what purposes; the characteristics of public schools that used KEAs; and whether the use of KEAs was correlated with student assessment scores in reading and mathematics in spring ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Making Connections

REL researchers analyzed data from the 2002/03 Head Start Impact Study (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) using latent class analysis to determine whether multiple measures, each designed to address one aspect of classroom quality, could collectively differentiate ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

The purpose of the Teacher Data Use Survey is to provide district and school leaders with a survey instrument that will enable them to learn more about teachers' use of data, teachers' attitudes toward data, and teachers' perception of supports for using data. The survey was developed ... » more info

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine how public school principals allocate their time to various job-related tasks and investigate the types of professional development they attend. This report summarizes a secondary analysis of data from the 2011/12 school year collected through ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' performance on the Praxis I Pre-Professional Skills Tests® (PPST) in reading, writing, and math, and the relationships between test performance and selected teacher demographic and professional characteristics, in order to further ... » more info

What's Happening

The Grades 3–8 Self-Study Guide for Implementing Literacy Interventions was developed to help district- and school-based practitioners conduct self-studies for planning and implementing literacy interventions. It is intended to promote reflection about current strengths ... » more info

Self-Study Guide

District and state education leaders and teachers frequently use assessments to identify students who are at risk of performing poorly on end-of-year reading achievement tests. This study explores the use of a universal screening assessment of reading skills for the identification of ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

The Toolkit of Resources for Engaging Families and Community as Partners in Education provides resources for school staff to build relationships with families and community members and to support family well-being, strong parent-child relationships, and students’ ongoing learning and ... » more info

Tools

The Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southeast developed a Professional Learning Community (PLC) Facilitators Guide to support educators in the implementation of recommendations from the What Works Clearinghouse's. The practice guide focuses on the foundational reading skills that ... » more info

Reference Guide

Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest, in partnership with its School Turnaround Research Alliance, developed a survey that state education departments and school districts can use to measure the degree to which schools are engaging in practices associated with high ... » more info

Tools

This guide describes core ideas for colleges to consider when developing a screening tool for estimating college readiness. A key focal point within the guide is a discussion of ways to improve how well a screening tool can identify individuals needing remedial or developmental ... » more info

Tools

This literature review searched the peer-reviewed studies of reading comprehension instructional practices conducted and published between 1994 and 2014 and summarizes the instructional practices that have demonstrated positive or potentially positive effects in scientifically rigorous ... » more info

What's Known

This annotated bibliography is a compilation of valid and reliable measures of key performance indicators of teacher professional learning communities (PLCs). The research team employed a rigorous process of searching and screening the scientific literature and other sources for ... » more info

Tools

Making Connections

What's Happening

What's Happening

Many states are beginning to move away from policies that base student advancement on credits and "seat time" toward competency-based learning policies that provide schools with the flexibility to link advancement to a student's mastery of content. As schools and districts implement ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

Due to increasing evidence that high rates of teacher and administrator turnover adversely affect student academic outcomes, stakeholders in West Virginia were interested in learning more about retention, mobility, and attrition rates in their public school districts. The Regional ... » more info

What's Happening

Educators at the state and local levels are increasingly using data to inform policy decisions. While student achievement data is often used to inform instructional or programmatic decisions, educators may also need additional sources of data, some of which may not be housed in their ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Applied Research Methods

The purpose of this study was to identify a set of data elements for students in grades 8 and 9 in three Ohio school districts that could serve as accurate early warning indicators of their failure to graduate high school on time and to comparatively examine the accuracy of those ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of field experiences in traditional teacher preparation programs completed by first-year teachers in Missouri and how experiences vary by teaching certificate type. This descriptive study is based on data from a survey ... » more info

What's Happening

Student enrollment in online courses has increased over the past 15 years and continues to grow. However, there is much that is not known about students' educational experiences and outcomes in online courses. The purpose of the study conducted by REL Midwest in partnership with the ... » more info

Making Connections

This study examined whether the Ramp-Up to Readiness program (Ramp-Up) differs from college readiness supports that are typically offered by high schools, whether high schools were able to implement Ramp-Up to Readiness to the developer's satisfaction, and how staff in schools ... » more info

What's Happening

Most U.S. school districts (88 percent) offer credit recovery programs that allow students to make up courses that they need to meet graduation requirements. Online credit recovery options are popular, especially in rural states, because they allow schools to serve students in remote ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to examine (a) how teachers and school staff individually administer computer-adaptive assessments of literacy to English learner students in grades 3–5, and (b) how they use the assessments to monitor students' growth. Because adaptive assessments ... » more info

What's Happening

What's Happening

Kentucky is using dual enrollment as one strategy to improve access to postsecondary education for its high school students, particularly after passage of Kentucky Senate Bill 1 in 2009, which focused on improving college and career readiness. The Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) ... » more info

What's Happening

A key strategy of the Kentucky Department of Education's and Council on Postsecondary Education's College and Career Readiness Delivery plan is to provide opportunities for high school students to earn college credit. Districts across Kentucky are implementing dual credit programs, but ... » more info

What's Happening

Making Connections

Reference Guide

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of teacher evaluation scores that are derived from an observation tool, adapted from Danielson's Framework for Teaching, designed to assess 22 teaching components from four teaching domains. The study analyzed principals' ... » more info

Making Connections

Recent teacher evaluation reforms instituted across the country have sought to yield richer information about educators' strengths and limitations and guide decisions about targeted opportunities for professional growth. This study describes how results from new multiple-measure ... » more info

What's Happening

This study examines implementation of the School Improvement Grant (SIG) transformation model in rural regions, exploring challenges in implementation and technical assistance to support these efforts. This study is not part of the federal evaluation of the SIG, which provides more ... » more info

What's Happening

This study examines the postsecondary readiness of first-time students who enrolled in the University of Alaska system over a four-year period. The study calculates the proportion of students considered academically underprepared for college and how placement rates for developmental ... » more info

What's Happening

This study, conducted by the Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast & Islands in collaboration with the Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance, reports on the relationship between teachers' perceptions of school professional climate and their satisfaction with their ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Making Connections

This report presents a summary of research on the associations between state interventions in chronically low-performing schools and student achievement. The majority of the research focused on one type of state intervention: working with a turnaround partner. In this type of ... » more info

What's Known

Rural districts have long faced challenges in closing the achievement gap between high-poverty students and their more affluent peers. This research brief outlines key decision points and considerations for state and district decisionmakers who wish to identify rural districts that ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between measures of reading comprehension, decoding, and language with college-ready performance. This research was motivated by leaders in two Florida school districts interested in the extent to which performance on Florida's ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to review recent peer-reviewed studies in order to identify malleable factors measured in K–12 settings that are related to students' postsecondary STEM success, particularly for Hispanic students. Postsecondary STEM success was defined as enrollment ... » more info

What's Known

This report provides a snapshot of school district policies for mentoring new teachers in five REL Central states (Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota). State education agencies collected survey data from school districts on: who provides mentoring; how mentoring ... » more info

What's Happening

Tools

This study examined how long it typically takes English learner students to become proficient in English and how this time differs by student characteristics, such as gender, home language, or initial proficiency in English. The authors analyzed state data for 16,957 English learner ... » more info

What's Happening

This study follows Alaskan students in their first six years after high school to describe the pathways they took to postsecondary education and careers. Analyzing data from multiple national and state education and employment sources, the study examines the trajectories of 40,000 ... » more info

What's Happening

REL Northeast and Islands, in collaboration with the Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance, examined the alignment of teacher evaluation and professional learning in a large urban district in the Northeast. REL researchers examined the types of professional learning ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

This report series includes four state-level studies in the Federated States of Micronesia states of Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, and Yap. The purpose of these studies was to examine the quality of the education management information systems (EMIS) in the Federated States of Micronesia. ... » more info

What's Happening

This study, undertaken at the request of the Nevada Department of Education, examined the stability over years of teacher-level growth scores from the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) model, which many states and districts have selected as a measure of effectiveness in their teacher ... » more info

What's Happening

Educators have many decisions to make and it's important that they have the right data to inform those decisions and access to questionnaires that can gather that data. This guide, developed by REL Central and based on work done through separate projects with the Wyoming Office of ... » more info

Tools

This report provides descriptive information about the location and native language use of schools in the REL Central Region with high enrollment of American Indian students, whether Bureau of Indian Education schools or non–Bureau of Indian Education high-density American Indian ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the rates of retention, mobility, and attrition for classroom teachers in Kentucky public schools, as well as how those rates might vary by various teacher and school characteristics. The study looks at retention, defined as ... » more info

What's Happening

This systematic review of the relationships between principal characteristics and student achievement was created for educators, administrators, policy-makers, and other individuals interested in a comprehensive catalogue of research on relations between principal characteristics and ... » more info

What's Known

Approximately 30 states are now adopting teacher evaluation policies that include student learning objectives (SLOs), which are classroom-specific student test growth targets set by teachers and approved (and scored) by principals. Today state and district leaders are trying to ... » more info

What's Happening

REL Midwest, in partnership with the Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance, analyzed the results of a survey administered to Wisconsin Virtual School teachers about the training in which they participated related to online instruction, the challenges they encounter while teaching ... » more info

What's Happening

This report presents a survey tool, developed by REL Central at Marzano Research, designed to gather information from teachers about their perceptions of and responses to evaluator feedback. District or state administrators can use this survey to systematically collect teacher ... » more info

Tools

The purpose of the study reported here was to explore the relationship between the type of high school attended (magnet versus comprehensive) and the likelihood of graduates having completed an advanced course, after accounting for students' prior achievement. In addition, the study ... » more info

What's Happening

To understand the learning trajectories of the growing numbers of English learner students in the West, especially those who struggle to pass state English language arts and math content tests, this study followed three cohorts of English learner students in Arizona over six school ... » more info

What's Happening

This report describes the results of a REL Southeast study comparing student success in online credit recovery and general courses taken online compared to traditional face-to-face courses. Credit recovery occurs when a student fails a course and then retakes the same course to earn ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which the measures that make up each of the three separate accountability indices of school performance in South Carolina could be used to create an overall, reliable index of school performance. Data from public elementary, ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

This study examined the progress of English learner students attending schools participating in the Road Map Project, a cradle-to-career initiative involving seven high-poverty, low-performing school districts in the metropolitan Seattle area. Examining data for English learner ... » more info

What's Happening

States and districts are increasingly concerned about how exclusionary discipline (i.e., suspensions and expulsions) and lost instructional time impacts student outcomes. Also, there is concern about whether there are disparities in exclusionary discipline rates between students from ... » more info

What's Happening

State requirements to include student achievement growth in teacher evaluations are prompting the development of alternative ways to measure growth in grades and subjects not covered by state assessments. These alternative growth measures use two primary approaches: (1) value-added ... » more info

What's Happening

While the literature on learning disabilities and on second-language acquisition is relatively extensive within the field of education, less is known about the specific characteristics and representation of English learner students with learning disabilities. Because there are no ... » more info

What's Known

This randomized trial examined the effects of the Elevate Math summer program on math achievement and algebra readiness, as well as math interest and self-efficacy, among rising 8th grade students in California's Silicon Valley. The Elevate Math summer math program targets students who ... » more info

Making an Impact

The Professional Learning Communities Facilitator's Guide is designed to assist teams of educators in applying the evidence-based strategies presented in the Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English ... » more info

Tools

This study examined 1) average distances traveled to attend college, (2) presumptive college eligibility, (3) differences between two-year and four-year college enrollment, (4) differences in enrollment related to differences in colleges' selectivity, and (5) degree of "undermatching" ... » more info

Making Connections

This REL Northwest study examined whether rural students at all achievement levels were less likely than their nonrural counterparts to enroll in college and persist to the second year. The researchers analyzed college enrollment patterns and persistence among rural and nonrural Oregon ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to describe the measures used to evaluate principals in New Jersey in the first (pilot) year of the new principal evaluation system and examine three of the statistical properties of the measures: their variation among principals, their year-to-year ... » more info

Making Connections

This study examines the extent of developmental education participation among Oregon high school graduates students who attend community college and the relationship between high school experiences and subsequent developmental education course-taking. An analysis of state and national ... » more info

What's Happening

The Logic Model Workshop Toolkit is designed to help practitioners learn the purpose of logic models, the different elements of a logic model, and the appropriate steps for developing and using a logic model for program evaluation. Topics covered in the sessions include an overview of ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

This toolkit, developed by REL Central in collaboration with York Public Schools in Nebraska, provides a process and tools to help teachers use data from their classroom assessments to evaluate promising practices. The toolkit provides teachers with guidance on how to deliberately ... » more info

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine student characteristics related to completing high school within four years, with particular emphasis on graduation outcomes for male and English language learner students. The authors looked at a cohort of students who began grade 9 in the ... » more info

What's Happening

Throughout the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Region, teacher absenteeism has posed a long-standing challenge. This report draws on research literature from international contexts and case studies to identify the underlying factors that may relate to teacher absenteeism. Resources included in ... » more info

What's Known

What's Happening: The purpose of this study is to describe what data preschools in a mid-sized city in the Northeast collect, how they use that data, and the challenges they face. The study focuses on three types of data: early learning outcomes, dosage (i.e., the amount of exposure to ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

The Culture of Data Use Workshop Toolkit helps school and district teams apply research to practice as they establish and support a culture of data use in their educational setting. The field-tested workshop toolkit guides teams through a set of structured activities to develop an ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in financial aid and student enrollment at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) after the U.S. Department of Education increased the credit history requirements necessary to obtain Parental Loans for Undergraduate ... » more info

Making Connections

This guide was developed to provide guidance to states or districts wishing to monitor implementation of educator evaluation systems. It describes a three-step process: develop state guidelines for educator evaluation systems; develop data collection methods; and determine adherence ... » more info

Tools

This study examined whether data on Indiana high school students, their high schools, and the Indiana public colleges and universities in which they enroll predict their academic success during the first two years in college. The researchers obtained student-level, school-level, and ... » more info

Making Connections

What's Happening Report: As in most states, New York does not currently have a state-level protocol for collecting data about schools' objectives or methods for offering online courses. The goals of the study conducted by the REL Northeast & Islands' Northeast Rural Districts Research ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

The Applied Research Methods report outlines the processes and procedures used to analyze data from the Florida education staffing database. The report also provides directions and examples for conducting similar work using administrative databases.

The What's Happening report ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

Documenting and improving early childhood program quality is a national priority, leading to a rapid expansion of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRISs). QRISs document and improve the quality of early childhood education programs and provide clear information to families about ... » more info

What's Happening

Schools that show better academic performance than would be expected given characteristics of the school and student populations are often described as "beating the odds" (BTO). State and local education agencies often attempt to identify such schools as a means of identifying ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

The purpose of this report was to explicate the use of logistic regression and classification and regression tree (CART) analysis in the development of early warning systems. It was motivated by state education leaders' interest in maintaining high classification accuracy while ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

This guide is designed to facilitate self-studies of planning and implementation of state-required summer reading camp programs for grade 3 students who scored at the lowest level on the state reading assessment. It provides a template for data collection and guiding questions for ... » more info

Tools

What's Happening: The purpose of the study conducted by REL Midwest in partnership with the Midwest Virtual Education Research Alliance was to develop and administer a survey to describe online course use in Iowa and Wisconsin brick-and-mortar public high schools ... » more info

What's Happening

REL Northeast & Islands, in collaboration with the Northeast Educator Effectiveness Research Alliance and the New Hampshire Department of Education, conducted a study of the implementation of new teacher evaluation systems in New Hampshire's School Improvement Grant (SIG) schools. ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to examine Kentucky high school students' participation and pass rates in college preparatory transition courses, which are voluntary remedial courses in math and reading offered to grade 12 students in the state. Three groups of students were compared ... » more info

What's Happening

To stem the tide of students dropping out, many schools and districts are turning to early warning systems (EWS) that signal whether a student is at risk of not graduating from high school. While some research exists about establishing these systems, there is little information about ... » more info

What's Known

The Practitioner Data Use Workshop Toolkit is designed to help practitioners systematically and accurately use data to inform their teaching practice. The toolkit includes an agenda, slide deck, participant workbook, and facilitator's guide and covers the following topics: developing ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

This series of reports examines the accuracy of performance ratings from the Framework for Leadership (FFL), Pennsylvania's tool for evaluating the leadership practices of principals and assistant principals. Four key properties of the FFL were analyzed: score variation, internal ... » more info

Making Connections

The purpose of this study was to describe how states in the REL Central Region (Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) evaluate teacher preparation programs and planned changes for evaluation. Publicly available documents were reviewed and ... » more info

What's Happening

This study describes key challenges and necessary supports related to implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) identified by rural math educators in the Northeast. The research team interviewed state and district math coordinators and surveyed teachers ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

This report describes the characteristics of students with disabilities in Utah public schools, and presents the single-year mobility and dropout rates for students in grades 6–12, as well as the four-year cohort dropout and graduation rates, for students who started grade 9 for ... » more info

What's Happening

This REL West study explores the prevalence of students repeating Algebra I, who is most likely to repeat the course, and the level of improvement for students who repeat. Using six years of data from a cohort of 3,400 first-time seventh grade students in a California school district, ... » more info

What's Happening

This study describes how multiple-measure teacher evaluations were put into practice in a set of ten volunteering local education agencies (LEAs) in Arizona. After a key shift in state policy, five "pilot" LEAs implemented the new Arizona Department of Education teacher evaluation ... » more info

What's Happening

This study examined whether adding student and teacher survey measures to existing principal evaluation measures increases the overall power of the principal evaluation model to explain variation in student achievement across schools. The study was conducted using data from ... » more info

Making Connections

This study explored the relationships among the components of the Arizona Department of Education's new teacher evaluation model, with a particular focus on the extent to which ratings from the state model's teacher observation instrument differentiated higher and lower performance. ... » more info

Making Connections

This REL Northwest study looked at the funding, delivery, and coordination of instructional services offered by Washington state's network of nine Educational Service Districts (ESDs). REL Northwest examined 10 statewide teaching and learning support areas, including the percentages of ... » more info

What's Happening

The purpose of this study was to examine the college enrollment and persistence rates of rural high schools in Pennsylvania; the types of postsecondary institutions in which students from such schools enroll; and the student, school, and college characteristics associated with ... » more info

Making Connections

REL Appalachia conducted a systematic review of the research evidence on the effects of increased learning time. After screening more than 7,000 studies, REL Appalachia identified 30 that met the most rigorous standards for research. A review of those 30 studies found that increased ... » more info

What's Known

The College Readiness Data Catalog Tool and User Guide enable states, districts and other educational entities to assess the presence of college readiness indicators in extant data sets and identify gaps that may present challenges in developing future indicator systems. The College ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine the appropriateness of using student and staff self-report surveys—the California School Climate, Health, and Learning Survey (Cal-SCHLS)—to assess school climate in middle schools. The study examined (a) the domains of school ... » more info

What's Happening

Questions about how best to place students into appropriate middle grade math courses have been central to ongoing education policy and practice discussions in California and across the United States. Recent studies have shown that enrolling in algebra I in grade 8 works well for some ... » more info

What's Happening

This study provides an overview of similarities and differences in how states and state education agencies define alternative education, as well as which states have alternative education standards and what those standards entail. The study reviewed information on alternative education ... » more info

What's Known

This study examined student and program characteristics that are related to English proficiency and content area achievement for English language learner students in one urban district in New England. The study found that English learner students with individualized education programs ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Making Connections

This report describes the approach that REL Northeast & Islands used to guide its eight research alliances toward collaboratively identifying a shared research agenda. A key feature of their approach was a two-workshop series, during which alliance members created a set of research ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

REL Appalachia conducted a systematic review of the research evidence on the effects of increased learning time. After screening more than 7,000 studies, REL Appalachia identified 30 that met the most rigorous standards for research. A review of those 30 studies found that increased ... » more info

What's Known

Responding to federal and state prompting, school districts across the country are implementing new teacher evaluation systems that aim to increase the rigor of evaluation ratings, better differentiate effective teaching, and support personnel and staff development initiatives that ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The English Language Learner (ELL) Program Survey for Principals includes survey questions for state education agencies to use to collect data about: 1) school-level policies and practices for educating ELL students; 2) the types of professional development related to ELL education ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the early identification of students who are at-risk for reading comprehension difficulties is improved using logistic regression or classification and regression tree (CART). This research question was motivated by state education ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

This Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northwest study identifies how frequently students in six selected urban districts received exclusionary discipline during the 2011/12 school year, the most common reasons for such discipline, the percentage of students receiving multiple ... » more info

What's Happening

State education leaders are often interested in identifying schools that have demonstrated success with improving the literacy of students who are at the highest level of risk for reading difficulties. The identification of these schools that are "beating the odds" is typically ... » more info

What's Happening

States and districts are beginning to use student achievement growth — as measured by state assessments (often using statistical techniques known as value-added models or student growth models) — as part of their teacher evaluation systems. But this approach has limited ... » more info

What's Happening

The Early Childhood Educator Survey and the Early Childhood Administrator Survey allow users to collect consistent data on the use of child assessments and learning standards in early childhood learning settings. Each survey includes modules on educator/administrator background ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Tools

This guide describes the role of logic models in effective program planning, collaboration, and monitoring. It explains how the four components of these models—resources, activities, outputs, and outcomes—relate to one another to provide a visual display of a program's ... » more info

Tools

This study found that teachers' perceptions of school improvement goals, processes, and supports measured by the Educational Effectiveness Survey (EES) were not generally related to three student outcomes in Idaho schools: proficiency in reading, proficiency in math, and attendance. ... » more info

Making Connections

This report provides an overview of how states define and apply student learning objectives (SLOs) in evaluation systems. The research team conducted a systematic scan of state policies by searching state education agency websites of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. to identify ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

What's Happening

This study examines whether disproportionate rates of suspensions and expulsions exist for racial/ethnic minority students and special education students in Maryland during the period 2009/10 to 2011/12. The study found that disproportionalities between Black and White students ... » more info

Making Connections

This quick reference guide defines the major components of education programs—resources, activities, outputs, and short-, mid-, and long-term outcomes—and uses an example to demonstrate the relationships among them.

Tools

Many states have raised the compulsory school attendance age to 17 or 18, anticipating that a reduction in dropout, truancy, and discipline problems will more than compensate for the higher costs of educating students longer. This review examines the evidence on whether a higher ... » more info

What's Known

States increasingly are interested in incorporating measures of student achievement growth in teacher evaluations. But the typical measure of student growth—progress on state assessments from one school year to the next—usually covers only reading and math and only in ... » more info

What's Known

Description: Needs assessment conversations with rural Mid­Atlantic Professional Learning Research Alliance members revealed a widespread interest in the idea of online professional learning communities (PLCs) for use in schools and school districts across the region. ... » more info

What's Known

This report analyzed student performance on the FAIR reading comprehension screen across grades 4–10 and the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) 2.0 to determine how well the FAIR and the 2011 FCAT 2.0 scores predicted 2012 FCAT 2.0 performance. The first key finding was ... » more info

Applied Research Methods

This study examines the impact of the Pacific Communities with High Performance in Literacy Development (Pacific CHILD) professional development program on student achievement in reading comprehension and on teacher pedagogical knowledge and instructional practice in English language ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This study examines impacts of the Content Literacy Continuum (CLC) on high school students' reading comprehension and accumulation of credits in core subject areas. The Content Literacy Continuum (CLC) combines whole-school and targeted approaches to supporting student literacy and ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This study examined the impact of the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) program on student reading achievement and teachers' use of differentiated instructional practices. The MAP program is one of the most widely used commercially available systems incorporating benchmark assessment ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This REL West Technical Brief, How California's local education agencies evaluate teachers and principals, summarizes the results of a statewide survey of teacher and principal evaluation practices across school districts and direct-funded charter schools in California. Key findings ... » more info

Technical Brief

The study was motivated by a 2005 Oregon law that requires students to take three years of mathematics courses at the algebra I level or above (advanced math), beginning with the Class of 2014. This study examines the percentage of Oregon students enrolled in high school–level math ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report compares the shares of preK seats provided by public school systems and collaborative partners—federal or private—and analyzes participation based on socioeconomic and racial/ethnic subgroups and district characteristics. This report updates through 2010/11 a ... » more info

Technical Brief

The report compares performance of grade 8 Hispanic students on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) English language arts and math tests with that of grade 8 White, Black, and other non-Hispanic students during school years 2002/03 to 2008/09. It also examines how ... » more info

Technical Brief

This report examines how grade 5 and grade 8 student achievement on the 2009/10 MCA–II science assessment differed by student and school characteristics (gender, eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch, special education status, race/ethnicity, and prior-year academic achievement). ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report examines how well the freshman on-track indicator developed by the Consortium on Chicago School Research predicts on-time graduation in two urban districts in the Midwest Region. This indicator classifies students at the end of the first year of high school as on-track or ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The number of English language learner (ELL) students in Delaware public schools rose 91.7 percent from 2002/03 to 2008/09, whereas total enrollment increased 7.7 percent. ELL student enrollment increased from 3.0 percent of total student enrollment in 2002/03 to 5.4 percent in ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The number of English language learner (ELL) students in District of Columbia public schools rose 1.8 percent from 2002/03 to 2008/09, whereas total student enrollment fell 6.3 percent. ELL student enrollment increased from 7.7 percent of total student enrollment in 2002/03 to 8.4 ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The number of limited English proficient (LEP) students in Maryland public schools rose 73 percent from 2002/03 to 2008/09, whereas total student enrollment rose only 2.1 percent. During that period, LEP student enrollment increased from 3.0 percent of total student enrollment in ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The number of English language learner (ELL) students in Pennsylvania public schools rose 24.7 percent from 2002/03 to 2008/09, whereas total student enrollment fell 2.4 percent. During that period, ELL student enrollment increased from 2.1 percent of the student population in 2002/03 ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report describes enrollment and achievement trends of LEP students in New Jersey public schools between 2002/03 and 2008/09. It documents achievement gaps between LEP and general education students in language arts literacy and math, as measured by statewide assessments ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This 2006–11 REL Midwest at Learning Point Associates report, Changes in student populations and teacher workforce in low-performing Chicago schools targeted for reform, examines changes in student populations and teacher workforce in 31 chronically low-performing Chicago public ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The 2006-11 Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia at CNA conducted a rigorous evaluation of the Kentucky Virtual Schools hybrid algebra I curriculum. The curriculum combines traditional face-to-face instruction with an online program. This study used a two-cohort sample with 25 ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This study is a randomized controlled trial examining the impact on student English language proficiency of the On Our Way to English (OWE) curriculum, offered in combination with the Responsive Instruction for Success in English (RISE) teacher professional ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This technical brief describes English language learner student enrollment across school districts in the four REL Appalachia Region states (Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia) for 2005/06–2008/09, updating an earlier report covering 1998/99–2004/05. The ... » more info

Technical Brief

The characteristics and experiences of beginning teachers in seven Northeast and Islands Region states and nationally, was produced by the 2006–11 REL Northeast and Islands and Education Development Center, Inc. The report describes the characteristics and experiences of ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Issues & Answers

National and state policymakers are concerned that the principal workforce is aging, that fewer new principals are joining the workforce, and that fewer female and racial/ethnic minority educators are entering and remaining in the principal workforce. This study describes trends in ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Like other states across the country, the seven REL Midwest Region states have been striving to meet the performance targets established under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Under the act, districts are identified as "in improvement" and schools as "in need of improvement" after ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The 2006–11 Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic at Penn State University has concluded a rigorous experimental study of the effect of the Connected Mathematics Project 2 (CMP2) on the mathematics achievement and engagement of grade 6 students.

CMP2 is designed to ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

The study, Effects of Making Sense of SCIENCE professional development on the achievement of middle school students, including English language learners, found that grade 8 teachers who received the professional development had greater content knowledge about force and motion and ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

The study of the Lessons in Character program found no effect of the program on the academic achievement, social competence, or problem behavior of students who participated in the program, compared to students who did not participate.

Lessons in Character is a supplementary ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

The 2006–2011 REL Southwest at Edvance conducted a large-scale, multidistrict randomized control trial to examine the effectiveness of a summer reading initiative for economically disadvantaged grade 3 students who scored below the 50th percentile nationally in reading. The ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

The PITC intervention approach combines direct caregiver training and on-site coaching or other tailored assistance. This study tested a specific implementation model of PITC, with delivery of 64 hours of training and 40 hours of on-site coaching and support, requiring an average of 14 ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

To add to the evidence base on effective strategies for teaching English language learner students, the 2006–2011 REL West at WestEd conducted a rigorous study, using an intent-to-treat model, of the impact on middle grades student achievement of offering teachers the opportunity ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This study examines retirement patterns of California educators (primarily teachers and school-site administrators) from 1995/96 to 2009/10 to determine how the recent economic recession and the aging of the baby boomer population have affected California educators' age distribution ... » more info

Issues & Answers

An examination of performance-based teacher evaluation systems in five states, was conducted by the 2006–2011 REL Northeast and Islands at Education Development Center, Inc. This study reviewed state education agency websites and publicly available documents for all 50 states to ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Issues & Answers

Teaching English language learner students: professional standards in elementary education in Central Region states examines what Central Region states expect K–8 general education teachers to know and be able to do in order to teach ELL students. The report reviews state documents on ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This REL Midwest study, Differences in spending in school districts across geographic locales in Minnesota, uses comparative descriptive analysis to examine five types of district spending per student for prekindergarten–grade 12 in seven locale types.

Issues & Answers

Partnerships between tribal education departments and local education agencies, examines nine partnerships between tribal education departments—organizations overseeing American Indian education—and local education agencies. Individual profiles describe how each ... » more info

Issues & Answers

REL Southeast recently conducted a randomized control trial on the effectiveness of the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative (AMSTI) in grades 4–8. Introduced in 2002, AMSTI is a whole-school reform initiative providing professional development, access to materials and ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

To increase the evidence base on remediation in early math, the 2006-2011 REL Southwest at Edvance Research conducted a rigorous experimental study of the impact of the Number Rockets small group tutoring program on grade 1 math achievement. Number Rockets is an early mathematics ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This study of the Title I supplemental educational services program in the Regional Educational Laboratory Appalachia region looks at enrollment rates, number of tutoring hours contracted for and attended by students, and variations in the type of instruction across providers and ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This technical brief describes updates to a database of dropout prevention programs and policies in 2006/07 created by the Regional Education Laboratory (REL) Northeast and Islands and described in the Issues & Answers report, Piloting a searchable database of dropout prevention ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Technical Brief

Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 and its adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements, the nation's education systems have increased their focus on school improvement interventions that build school and teacher capacity to increase student achievement in ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

Many students graduate from high school unprepared for the rigorous reading required in entry-level college and career work. This brief builds on a recent report (Wilkins et al. 2010) that used the Lexile measure (a method for measuring the reading difficulty of prose text and the ... » more info

Technical Brief

English language proficiency levels of limited English proficient students in Idaho, examines statewide results on the Idaho English Language Assessment (IELA), the federally mandated annual assessment Idaho administers to all limited English proficient (LEP) students. It documents the ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study, Plans to adopt and implement Common Core State Standards in the Southeast Region states, produced by the 2006–2011 REL Southeast at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro examines the processes for adopting and implementing the common standards and ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Reading, writing, and arithmetic have long been considered the foundation, or “basics,” of education in the United States. Writing skills are important for an increasing number of jobs. Poor writing skills are a barrier to hiring and promotion for many individuals, and remediation of ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This report presents findings from a randomized control trial designed to inform the decisions of policymakers who are considering using online courses to provide access to Algebra I in grade 8. It focuses on students judged by their schools to be ready to take Algebra I in grade 8 but ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

Native Hawaiian students represent the largest single ethnic group in Hawai'i, at 27 percent of the student population in 2008/09. This REL Pacific report, Comparing the achievement patterns of Native Hawaiian and non-Native Hawaiian grade 8 students in reading and math, reports the ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Improving the ability of at-risk children to read and comprehend text has been a high priority in education policy over the last two decades. Low levels of reading achievement have been related to low academic performance. One critical factor in reading achievement is adequate ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This study examines two state-supported formative assessment initiatives that promote a consensus definition of formative assessment endorsed by the Council of Chief State School Officers. It describes the primary components of the two initiatives and the strategies that state, ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Issues & Answers

The report describes the percentage of secondary schools that have adopted policies and practices for student wellness, physical education, food service, and nutrition education across the seven jurisdictions in the Pacific Region. Policies include providing professional development ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study of advanced-level high school courses that offer credit toward both a high school diploma and a college degree in Florida compares one such program (dual enrollment) with others, describing the number and characteristics of grade 11 and 12 students enrolled overall and by ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report documents how four state education agencies are supporting local data-driven decisionmaking through their policies, practices, and programs for creating data systems, improving data access and use, and building district and school capacity to use data.

Issues & Answers

This technical brief examines the 2008/09 reading and math proficiency levels of four categories of Arizona public school students (comprising 11 student subgroups): ethnicity (American Indian, Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White), English language learner status (English language ... » more info

Technical Brief

This study examines the first four years of Tennessee's Voluntary Prekindergarten program, directed to four-year-olds eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. It reviews participation levels and trends for the program as a whole, for collaborative partner classrooms, and for student ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This REL Appalachia report, Superintendent Turnover in Kentucky, is the state’s first detailed description of superintendent turnover. It intends to help policymakers and other leaders better understand turnover so that they can develop new programs to prepare, recruit, and retain ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This REL Appalachia report examines the availability of career and technical education program areas in Tennessee high schools, concentrations completed by high school graduates in these program areas, and how these concentrations align with jobs in the labor market. It looks at how ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This technical brief responds to an Arizona Department of Education request to study academic performance in schools receiving funding through the federal Title I compensatory education program, the section of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 governing resources for schools and ... » more info

Technical Brief

Based on a review of state documents and interviews with state and local officials in six Midwest Region states, this qualitative study describes state education agency policy development and planning for response to intervention approaches to instruction. It also looks at the support ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Analysis of school improvement plans in five Midwest Region states reveals that more than 90 percent of plans included at least one "potentially effective" parent involvement activity and 70 percent included at least one extended learning activity (a before-school, afterschool, or ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report describes career academies in 12 Florida school districts in the 2006/07 school year. It examines their structure and career clusters, the high schools offering them, and the students enrolled.

Issues & Answers

Students entering high school face many new academic challenges. One of the most important is their ability to read and understand more complex text in literature, mathematics, science, and social studies courses as they navigate through a rigorous high school curriculum. The Regional ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This secondary analysis of survey data from a voluntary sample of 11,561 grade 3–8 students examines the prevalence and distribution of aggression, victimization, and approval of aggression, both overt (verbally and physically aggressive behavior intended to threaten or harm) and ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report overviews key elements of the Title III annual measurable achievement objectives (AMAO) in the Southeast Region states for 2007/08: number and type of Title III subgrantees, English language proficiency assessments used, and state and subgrantee performance in meeting AMAO ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), states, districts, and schools are required to ensure that all students meet the same high standards in mathematics and reading by the end of the 2013/14 school year (No Child Left Behind Act 2002). In working toward this goal, states, ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

Improving adolescent literacy is a critical step toward improving adolescent academic achievement (Kamil , Borman, Dole, Kral, Salinger, & Torgesen, 2008). “Adolescent literacy” commonly refers to the skills that students in Grades 4–12 need in order to successfully learn by reading, ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

Recent findings from an expert panel of reading researchers noted that approximately 8 million adolescents struggle with literacy in middle and high school (Biancarosa and Snow 2006); the "most common problem is that they are not able to comprehend what they read" (p. 3). Before the ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

REL West conducted a randomized control trial in two Western states that examined the effects of a problem based high school curriculum on students' proficiency in economics. The study found a significant positive impact for students of teachers who received receive professional ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This technical brief projects the need for new school-site administrators (principals and vice-principals) in California by region in two-year increments over 2010/11–2017/18. It builds on an earlier Regional Educational Laboratory West report that projected the aggregate need ... » more info

Technical Brief

This study examines the relationship between performance on Utah's English proficiency assessment and English language arts and mathematics content assessments by English language learner students and compares the performance of English language learner and non–English language learner ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report describes dropout prevention programs identified by respondents in nine school districts in the Mid-Atlantic Region, along with a searchable database of the programs. The programs expand a database developed in an earlier Northeast and Islands Region study. Only 1 of the 58 ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Using multilevel regression models to examine how student characteristics, student prior achievement measures, and school characteristics are associated with performance on the Maine High School Assessment, the study finds statistically significant relationships between several of ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

Using data from the National Student Clearinghouse and the Virginia Department of Education, this report examines college enrollment rates overall and by student academic and demographic characteristics for the Virginia public high school class of 2008.

Issues & Answers

This study of differences in resource allocation between rural and nonrural districts finds that rural districts in the West Region spent more per student, hired more staff per 100 students, and had higher overhead ratios of district- to school-level resources than did city and ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The study surveyed four career academies in Georgia that replicated the model of the Georgia Central Educational Center, which integrates technical instruction and academics at the high school level. The four replication sites adhered to the major tenets of the model. The model's ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report reviews the characteristics of 21 instruments that measure student engagement in upper elementary through high school. It summarizes what each instrument measures, describes its purposes and uses, and provides technical information on its psychometric properties.

Issues & Answers

This report describes results of an on-going project to generate and share information on core texts, supplemental materials, and benchmark assessments adopted by districts in the Mid-Atlantic Region states for language arts, math, and science courses in specific elementary, middle, ... » more info

Issues & Answers

School support teams work as external facilitators of improvement in schools and districts designated as in need of improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act. This study finds that team members in four Northwest regions states share many characteristics and qualifications and work ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study uses a measure of the on-track or off-track status of students at the end of grade 9 as an indicator of whether students in five Texas districts would graduate from high school in four years. In all five districts, on-time graduation rates were higher for students who were ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report summarizes responses from the 2003/04 Schools and Staffing Survey by public school teachers in the Northwest Region who began teaching in during 1999–2003. The report focuses on questions for teachers about coursework in preparation for teaching; preparation for ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Many students graduate from high school unprepared for the rigorous reading required in entry-level college and career work. This 2006-2011 REL Southwest at Edvance Research Technical Brief, How prepared are subgroups of Texas students for college-level reading? Applying a ... » more info

Issues & Answers

REL Southeast conducted a randomized control trial in the Mississippi Delta to test the impact of a kindergarten vocabulary instruction program on students' expressive vocabulary. The study titled, The Effectiveness of a Program to Accelerate Vocabulary Development in Kindergarten ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

This study tested 51 characteristics of bullying victimization, bullying victims, and bullying victims' schools to determine which were associated with reporting to school officials. It found that 11 characteristics in two categories—bullying victimization and bullying ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This study compares alignment of the ACT and the American Diploma Project (ADP) national college readiness standards sets with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English language arts and reading (TEKS ELAR) standards for grades 9–12 and analyzes their cognitive ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Research suggests several circumstances in which a school may face greater challenges in effectively teaching its English Language Learner (ELL) students and in closing the achievement gap between ELL students and those who are native English speakers: if it has high concentrations of ... » more info

Technical Brief

This report on teacher certification requirements in the Northeast and Islands Region finds that eight of the nine jurisdictions require some coursework in teaching students with disabilities for initial licensure of general education teachers.

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

Research suggests that highly mobile students (students who enter and leave school other than at the beginning or end of the school year) are less successful academically, drop out of school at higher rates, and require more frequent disciplinary action. This study, Student ... » more info

Issues & Answers

REL West's study on middle school math assessment accommodations found that simplifying the language—or linguistic modification—on standardized math test items made it easier for English Language learners to focus on and grasp math concepts, and thus was a more accurate ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

States update their teaching standards on an ongoing basis and can learn from other states' efforts. For example the "Updated multistate review of professional teaching standards" by REL West, adds to their previous 2009 review of teaching standards by offering options for broad ... » more info

Technical Brief

As the price of energy rose dramatically in recent years, school districts suddenly faced unexpected increases in energy bills not accounted for in school budgets. This report by REL Appalachia, Changes in the Cost of Energy in One State's School Districts, examines energy ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study of four national English language arts standards compares the content of three sets of standards with a benchmark set, the American Diploma Project (ADP), to see how closely the sets agree on what students should know in English language arts to prepare for college. The ... » more info

Issues & Answers

To help districts accurately identify students who are English language learners and also have learning disabilities, this study examines practices and challenges in the processes applied in three New York State districts in identifying learning disabilities among students who are ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This study was the first randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of Odyssey Math on student achievement. The study had the statistical power needed to detect a 0.20 effect size and was well designed in that comparable groups were created at baseline and maintained through ... » more info

NCEE/REL Evaluation Report

The report documents the results of a search of state education agency web sites in the nine Northeast and Islands Region jurisdictions for publicly available information related to RTI (response to intervention). It finds that seven jurisdictions have developed state documents on RTI ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This study compares the experiences and perceptions of new and experienced teachers in 235 schools in six western states (Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Wyoming) that have adopted the Reading First school reform initiative. Using previously collected data from surveys ... » more info

Issues & Answers

In this comprehensive effort to study Indian education policies, the report categorizes the policies of five Northwest Region states based on 13 key policies identified in the literature and describes the legal methods used to adopt them, such as statutes, regulations, and executive ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report describes how state education agencies in the Midwest Region monitor teacher supply, demand, and shortage; details why they monitor these data; and offers estimates of the monetary costs incurred in performing such studies.

Issues & Answers

This report provides information on the response to intervention (RTI) models supported by state education agencies in the Northwest Region and identifies states' RTI-related resources, policies, and activities. The information will help the Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study reports on the developmental functioning levels of children from birth through age 2 in early intervention services and children ages 3–5 in early childhood special education services at the time of entry into services, using data from the Oregon Early Childhood ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Stereotype threat arises from a fear among members of a group of reinforcing negative stereotypes about the intellectual ability of the group. The report identifies three randomized controlled trial studies that use classroom-based strategies to reduce stereotype threat and improve the ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This review of teaching standards in six states—California, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas—focuses on the structure, target audience, and selected content of the standards to inform California's revision of its teaching standards. The report was ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Focusing on student proficiency in reading and math from 2003/04 to 2006/07, this report compares gaps in performance on state achievement tests between grade 8 American Indian and Alaska Native students and all other grade 8 students in 26 states serving large populations of American ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The Indiana General Assembly increased the state grant funds for full-day kindergarten from $8.5 million for 2006/07 to $33.5 million for 2007/08. Following the increase in funding, the Indiana Department of Education and the Indiana State Board of Education requested assistance from ... » more info

Technical Brief

This examination of California's independent study high schools—alternative schools in which 75 percent or more of students in grades 9–12 are enrolled in full-time independent study—describes enrollment trends since 2001/02 and the number and characteristics of ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The report examines rates of participation in West Virginia's universal, voluntary prekindergarten program from 2002/03 to 2006/07. It describes the share of seats provided by collaborative partners and public school systems and analyzes participation rates by demographic and ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report describes efforts by five states—Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Rhode Island—to improve adolescent literacy. Highlighting common challenges and lessons, the report examines how each state has engaged key stakeholders, set rigorous goals and ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This report summarizes efforts to develop and pilot test a protocol for collecting information about parent involvement policies, practices, and programs being implemented at the middle and high school levels. The protocol can be used to expand documentation of strategies selected, ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

Under the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, states are required to assess students in reading and math and to identify them as below proficient or as proficient or advanced (both considered passing). Because schools are held accountable only for ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report describes and analyzes how eight state education agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region—those of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, and Vermont–identify and support low-performing schools and districts ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

Using assessment results for 5th and 8th grade English language learner students in three Northeast and Island Region states, the report finds that the English language domains of reading and writing (as measured by a proficiency assessment) are significant predictors of performance on ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

The study examines the extent to which elementary education teacher preparation programs in 36 randomly selected colleges and universities in the six Southeast Region states integrate content related to students with disabilities. Most programs require one disability-focused course, ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This technical brief examines the current alignment between the New Mexico Standards Based Assessment (NMSBA) assessment standards and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics framework. It looks at the extent to which current state assessment standards ... » more info

Technical Brief

This report provides state-, regional-, and district-level decision makers in the Northeast and Islands Region with a description of the Compendium of Strategies to Reduce Teacher Turnover in the Northeast and Islands Region, a searchable database of selected profiles of retention ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Issues & Answers

This report addresses the fact that although the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 spells out parent involvement requirements for schools in need of improvement, the majority (54 percent) of the 84 percent of Northwest Region school improvement plans reviewed failed to include such ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This technical brief examines the current alignment between Oklahoma Core Curriculum Tests (OCCT) and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics framework. It looks at the extent to which current state assessment standards cover the content on which 2009 ... » more info

Technical Brief

This technical brief examines the current alignment between the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program (LEAP) and Graduation Exit Examination (GEE) mathematics assessment standards and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics framework. It looks at the ... » more info

Technical Brief

This Technical Brief examines the current alignment between the Arkansas Comprehensive Testing, Assessment, and Accountability Program (ACTAAP) mathematics assessment standards and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics framework. It looks at the extent ... » more info

Technical Brief

This Technical Brief examines the alignment between the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) mathematics assessment standards and the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics framework. It looks at the extent to which current state assessment ... » more info

Technical Brief

This descriptive analysis updates an earlier study of California's Title I school districts in program improvement. California's accountability system continues to identify problems at the district level overlooked at the school level.

Technical Brief

This study is an exploratory inquiry into the context and challenges of measuring investment in professional development in six Southwest Region school districts. The study estimated annual spending of approximately $150-$600 per pupil-or 2-9 percent of total spending. These figures ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study examines California's efforts to foster preservice preparation of early intervention assistants for infants and toddlers with special needs through the Community College Personnel Preparation Project, a certificate program offered by participating community colleges. The ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report describes how six state education agencies and three local education agencies in the Southeast Region are adopting and implementing Response to Intervention-an education approach designed to provide effective, evidence-based interventions for struggling learners.

Issues & Answers

This technical brief describes the current status of the preparation and hiring of school principals in the Pacific Region-American Samoa, Guam, Hawaii, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap), Commonwealth of the Northern ... » more info

Technical Brief

This report describes the mathematics performance of grade 4 students with disabilities across schools categorized by need-to-resource capacity and compares their performance by school with that of general education students across New York State from 2003 to 2005. It finds that the ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This study examines American Indian parents' perceptions of parent involvement in their children's education and factors that may encourage or discourage involvement.

Issues & Answers

This report-analyzing the mathematics performance of grade 4 students with disabilities in Massachusetts across several metrics (by locale-need combination categories, in top-performing schools, and relative to general education students)-finds that the proportion of students with ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This report describes in-depth practices at six schools that are making targeted efforts to improve math education for students with disabilities and other struggling learners. It examines each school's practices for improving the math learning of all students as well as specific ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This report describes the planning and implementation of San Francisco's weighted student formula policy, an equity-driven student-based planning and budgeting policy. It examines one district's policy goals, planning and implementation considerations, and how the policy interacted ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP), the report examines how gender gaps differ between Vermont NAEP scores and U.S. NAEP scores and between Vermont NAEP and NECAP scores in grades 4 and 8. Overall ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

The Central Region states have greater percentages of rural students and schools than the U.S. average. This report describes how nine teacher preparation programs in the region prepare their graduates for teaching positions in rural settings.

Issues & Answers

This descriptive analysis provides a statistical profile of Arizona's lowest performing school districts, which can inform the context for district improvement as Arizona rolls out and refines its district intervention strategies.

Issues & Answers

This study follows a cohort of first-time 9th graders in one large urban school district from 2001/02 to 2005/06 and documents their dropout, reenrollment, and graduation rates. For the one-third of dropouts who reenrolled in the district over that period, it reports course credit ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The report highlights the differences among California's counties and regions in their use of underprepared teachers and their needs for new teachers in the coming decade as driven by projected student enrollment changes and teacher retirements. The findings show county and regional ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study examines the links between Nevada's grade 12 mathematics courses and remedial mathematics courses in Nevada's public colleges and universities. It analyzes remediation rates by students' highest grade 12 mathematics course level and mathematics grade point average and by ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This descriptive analysis provides a statistical profile of California's Title I school districts in program improvement. As an independent analysis of these districts in the aggregate, it is intended to inform the context for district improvement as California rolls out and refines ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This technical brief describes the large-scale assessment measures and practices used in the jurisdictions served by the Pacific Regional Educational Laboratory. The need for effective large-scale assessment was identified as a major priority for improving student achievement in the ... » more info

Technical Brief

This REL Technical Brief describes state-level policies and procedural requirements for guiding teacher evaluation practices at the district level in the seven states served by the Midwest Regional Educational Laboratory: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and ... » more info

Technical Brief

Representatives from the Michigan Department of Education and the Center for Educational Performance and Information requested assistance in estimating Michigan's capacity to adequately staff its high schools to meet the course requirements of the new Michigan Merit Curriculum. The ... » more info

Technical Brief

This report presents comprehensive and detailed information on grades 7-12 dropout rates and on high school graduation rates in the Central Region. Dropout and graduation rates are presented for the region as a whole and for each state in the region, by gender, race/ethnicity, locale, ... » more info

Issues & Answers

State standards for high schools in a majority of Central Region states cover 82 percent of the language arts topics but just 57 percent of the mathematics topics identified by both of two national studies as important for success in college and the workplace.

Issues & Answers

This report aims to help school districts deal with the challenges of newly enrolling or rapidly increasing English language learner students by offering background information and sharing the experiences of districts that have addressed similar challenges in providing services and ... » more info

Issues & Answers

New York rural schools and districts have a high percentage of core teaching assignments filled by highly qualified teachers, with only small differences across key factors such as school poverty and school need for improvement. Urban schools—particularly those in New York ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Issues & Answers

The purpose of this study is to describe the No Child Left Behind requirements for state standards and assessment systems. It examined official documents and peer review decision letters and included interviews with state assessment directors in the Central Region to highlight the ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Despite evidence that some dropout prevention programs have positive effects, whether districts in the region are using such evidence-based programs has not been documented. This report details a pilot project to generate and share knowledge by building a searchable database of dropout ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
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Issues & Answers

This study describes how four midsize urban school districts in the Northeast and Islands Region were providing foundation skills assessments and programs to struggling middle-grade readers. Researchers found variations, but also some similarities, in the districts' use of tests and ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Issues & Answers

In 2003, the U.S. Department of Education issued regulations allowing states to develop alternate standards and assessments for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. This study reviews and summarizes alternate assessment policies and practices and their ... » more info

Issues & Answers

REL Southwest received a request to review the report Avoidable Losses: High Stakes Accountability and the Dropout Crisis to assess the soundness of the study methodology and the appropriateness of the conclusions drawn in the report. The review by REL Southwest found that the ... » more info

Technical Brief

This report finds that the high school program for college preparation begins in 9th grade and that making up missed preparatory courses and academic content is likely to be difficult for students who put off college-preparatory work until later in their high school career.

Issues & Answers

This study answers one basic question: What is the status of student achievement in middle school mathematics in the Pacific Region jurisdictions? The findings provide a portrait of the types of mathematic assessments used in grades 7 and 8 and of how well students are performing.

Issues & Answers

Formative assessments help educators target instructional practices to meet specific student needs and monitor and support student progress toward valued state learning outcomes. Policies and programs in the five Southwest Region states suggest a range of strategies to support the ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report examines a Massachusetts pilot program for quarterly benchmark exams in middle-school mathematics, finding that program schools do not show greater gains in student achievement after a year. But that finding might reflect limited data rather than ineffective benchmark ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Issues & Answers

This report examines the availability and quality of predictive validity data for a selection of benchmark assessments identified by state and district personnel as in use within Mid-Atlantic Region jurisdictions. The report finds that evidence is generally lacking of their predictive ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This descriptive study provides a snapshot of teacher evaluation policies across a demographically diverse sample of districts in the Midwest Region. It aims to lay the groundwork for further research and inform conversations about current policies at the local, district, and state ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The evidence indicates that peer-assisted learning can have a substantively important positive effect on struggling high school students' reading comprehension. But reservations remain about attributing improved comprehension to peer-assisted learning because the students were not ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Of the more than 1,300 studies identified as potentially addressing the effect of teacher professional development on student achievement in three key content areas, nine meet What Works Clearinghouse evidence standards, attesting to the paucity of rigorous studies that directly ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report investigates progress in Virginia public schools in satisfying the requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 that every student be proficient in reading and math by 2014. It develops a variable change model that uses observed baseline proficiency and proficiency ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report examines to what extent Mid-Atlantic Region schools are achieving adequate yearly progress targets for No Child Left Behind subgroups. It provides education leaders with easily accessible data on what standards Mid-Atlantic Region states set for adequate yearly progress, ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The Pacific Region needs more highly qualified teachers, but current teacher preparation and training programs and certification and licensing processes are not meeting this need.

Issues & Answers

This descriptive report aims to stimulate discussion about high school reform among Southeast Region states. The report groups recent state activities in high school reform into six "levers for change." To encourage critical reflection, the report places the reform discussion in the ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This study provides policymakers with a data-driven profile of the education environment along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, an area known as La Frontera.

Issues & Answers

Access to important educational resources in California's middle and high schools is not equal among schools that serve different student populations. Overall, the most disadvantaged populations of middle and high school students are likely to have the least access to the resources ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report summarizes findings from a study of the psychometric properties of the resilience and youth development module, a key component of the Healthy Kids Survey. The study aims to improve resilience assessment and research so that educators can shape the school environment to ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report seeks to alert administrators, school staff, and database managers to variations in the naming systems of other cultures; to help these groups accommodate other cultures and identify students consistently in school databases; and to provide knowledge of other cultures' ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Research can improve understanding of two-year colleges, but new detailed indicators are needed to capture the complexities of this changing sector.

Issues & Answers

This descriptive study examines the systems of technical assistance and support that Northwest Region states implemented during 2005/06 for schools in need of improvement. By illuminating key characteristics and differences among state systems, the intent is to stimulate a thoughtful ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This report provides detailed information about the methods and instruments used to evaluate school readiness initiatives, discusses important considerations in selecting instruments, and provides resources and recommendations that may be helpful to those who are designing and ... » more info

Issues & Answers

At just 11 percent of eligible students, participation rates in supplemental educational services—available in schools that fail to make adequate progress for three years running—are low and may not improve until provision problems are resolved and programs demonstrate ... » more info

Issues & Answers

The percentages of students with disabilities were similar for all five Mid-Atlantic jurisdictions, at about 14 percent of students, but the percentages of schools reporting for this subgroup varied from 15 percent for Pennsylvania to 96 percent for Maryland. In four states more ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Participation in supplemental educational services in the Northwest Region is about one-third the national rate. Among the challenges to improving services for all eligible children are recruiting, monitoring, and evaluating service providers; communicating effectively at all levels, ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This policy research document is intended for Texas policymakers to use when examining possible changes to the state assessment's alignment with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The 2009 NAEP test is not yet in existence, so the purpose of this report is to give ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This policy research document is intended for New Mexico policymakers to use when examining possible changes to the state assessment's alignment with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The 2009 NAEP test is not yet in existence, so the purpose of this report is to ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This policy research document is intended for Arkansas policymakers to use when examining possible changes to the Arkansas state assessment's alignment with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The 2009 NAEP test is not yet in existence, so the purpose of this report ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This policy research document is intended for Oklahoma policymakers to use when examining possible changes to the state assessment's alignment with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The 2009 NAEP test is not yet in existence, so the purpose of this report is to ... » more info

Issues & Answers

This policy research document is intended for Louisiana policymakers to use when examining possible changes to the state assessment's alignment with the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The 2009 NAEP test is not yet in existence, so the purpose of this report is to ... » more info

Issues & Answers

States in the Midwest Region are developing innovative approaches to collecting and providing access to high-quality data in order to improve educational decisionmaking. Additional capacity-building and increased technical assistance at the state and local levels would enhance this ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Simply knowing that literacy coaches are in schools does not imply anything about how those individuals spend their time-there is a difference between being a coach and doing coaching.

Issues & Answers

This report describes the first year of the funded professional development activities in the Title IIB Math and Science Partnership projects in the Northwest Region and the evaluation models. The analysis is structured around the factors of professional development associated with ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Using various approaches to identify English language learners, several Pacific Region jurisdictions are developing English language proficiency standards and assessments aligned with those standards. Others are working on content standards, including language arts, and have expressed ... » more info

Issues & Answers

When selecting reading across the curriculum interventions, educators should consider the extent of the evidence base on intervention effectiveness and the fit with the school or district context, whether they are purchasing a product from vendors or developing it internally. This ... » more info

Issues & Answers

Clearly defining what rural means has tangible implications for public policies and practices in education, from establishing resource needs to achieving the goals of No Child Left Behind in rural areas. Six definitions of rural are commonly applied in different contexts.

Issues & Answers

More districts and charter schools in Utah reported implementing key elements of the state literacy framework and meeting their own goals in Year 2 of the Reading Improvement Program.

Issues & Answers

This REL Technical Brief examines whether, after two years of implementation, schools in Massachusetts using quarterly benchmark exams aligned with state standards in middle school mathematics showed greater gains in student achievement than those not doing so. A quasi-experimental ... » more info

Northeast & Islands
Publication:

Technical Brief

This Self-study Guide for Implementing High School Academic Interventions was developed to help district- and school-based practitioners plan and implement high school academic interventions. It is intended to promote reflection about current district and school strengths and ... » more info

Self-Study Guide