This research project takes a critical look at the data that drives educational policies. This research project looks at the data at the national level as well as the regional levels in order to see if the data is functioning differently at the different levels. All data has been collected from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) through reports published by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an independent committee assigned to collect and analyze educational data. The data was collected and then correlations were run between the expenditures per pupil, number of pupils per teacher, standardized test scores, such as average ACT, average SAT, average 8th grade Math and Reading tests, and average 4th grade Math and Reading tests. This research project also included the percentage of minority students in the classroom, a variable whose data has been collected over the years, but it has never been included in any prior analyses. What this research project found is that some of the data, such as the standardized test scores, have a different strength of relationship between variables at the different levels. For example, expenditures per pupil have strength in the relationship between the different standardized test scores at the national level, but once those numbers are broken down by region, the strength in the variables relationship is weakened. This research project also discovered that the make up of the classroom, specifically the percentage of minority students, is a vital factor in the performance of all students.

This study sought to uncover how the annual Florida School Report Card influences secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers’ self-efficacy and perceptions of student writing. The study’s findings suggested that ELA teachers’ self-efficacy may be indirectly influenced by the School Report Card. The participants in this study suggested that they do not feel totally capable of applying the information learned from the School Report Card to their own classrooms. The teachers who participated in the study also reported that they have low outcome expectations when interacting with the School Report Card. They do not believe that their actions can influence the School Report Card, and suggested that they see the school grade as a moving target with changing rules they may not be able to keep up with. The School Report Card was not suggested to directly impact the participants’ perceptions of student writing. Instead, the data suggested that a variety of internal and external factors influence the way teachers perceive their students’ writing quality. Finally, most of the participants suggested that they view the school grade as an unfair measure of achievement, and a tool that does not take into account the quality of the learning in the school and represents the school poorly. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was used to situate these findings and gain a better understanding of how the School Report Card functions as a tool for teachers and administrators.

The relationships between teacher opinions about Virginia's Standards of Learning testing program and five variables related to teachers' backgrounds and present working conditions were examined in the context of five dependent variables represented as discrete domains. A systematic sample of 464 members of the Virginia Education Association (VEA) was selected to participate in the study. A 52 item survey was mailed to the members of the sample to gather their opinions about the outcomes they believed were occurring as a result of Virginia's Standards of Learning testing program and the state's Regulations Establishing Standards for Accrediting Public Schools in Virginia. Three hundred fifty-two usable questionnaires were returned, for a 76% return rate. Descriptive statistics were used to portray teacher responses in five domains. Three way ANOVAs were computed to determine if any significant main effects or interactions were evident among the independent variables of tenure status, SOL test grade status, and school socio-economic level. Telephone surveys of twelve randomly selected teachers were conducted to enhance understanding of three dependent variables (domains): student outcomes, instructional outcomes, and teacher outcomes. These data were analyzed using qualitative strategies. Findings: Teachers' responses to the mailed survey indicated relatively unfavorable opinions about the outcomes of Virginia's Standards of Learning testing program and related regulations. Outcomes for instructional programs and for teachers themselves were rated more unfavorably than outcomes for students, outcomes for schools, or outcomes for public confidence. The ANOVA analyses indicated that teacher opinions did not vary meaningfully by any of the variables studied or by any combination of these variables. In short, even though a systematic sample of VEA members from throughout the state was surveyed, the opinions of this group of teachers were remarkably similar. Interview data confirmed that teachers had many concerns about outcomes associated with SOL testing. The interviews also indicated that teachers attributed several positive outcomes to SOL testing as well. Several rival hypotheses are presented to explain the apparent homogeneity of opinions among this systematic sample of Virginia educators. / Ed. D.

As stated before, both the Florida State Assessment Test and the EST measure the achievement of students on minimal objectives in the areas of communications and mathematics. One might therefore ask the question, “Why is there a need to administer both tests?” It would seem that both tests evaluate similar subject areas. This study is designed to explore this similarity of test items. Its purpose is to examine the relationship between the tests in terms of the test items. It is assumed that if there is a high degree of semblance between test items, there may not be a need for the administration of both tests. Specifically, the project is designed to analyze the contents of the State Assessment Test and the Essential Skills Test to determine if the test items measure different learnings or similar areas. This examination of items will be studied through a content analysis procedure to be developed by the author.

An examination of the characteristics of Texas middle schools has been conducted with the objective of developing a planning tool for middle staffs. This success is measured by the Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS), whose rating scale has three components: campus scores on the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (TAAS), campus attendance percentages, and campus dropout rates. TAAS scores and attendance rates have been the focus of this study. Two years of data were examined separately for research question. Principal component analysis reduced the number of indicators in both years' data to 20 factors/ Each of these factors received a designated based on the characteristics that the component indicators had in common. A multiple regression analysis was performed on these factors to determine the influence each had on the campus TAAS scores and attendance. The unpredictability of human subjects requires an additional step in this study to achieve valid conclusions. A comparison of the two years' results is made to discover attendance, gifted and talented programs, and teacher gender were the strongest overall positive influences on student achievement. Campus demographics, retention, and ESL/bilingual programs have the strongest association with low student achievement.

En svensk skolkommuns ambitioner har varit att klättra på skolrankingen. Ett sätt att göra detta är att utforma ett kommunalt matematikprov för årskurs 5 i syfte att upptäcka kunskapsluckor i god tid innan det nationella provet i årskurs 6. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur detta prov påverkar matematiklärarnas arbete. Detta har undersökts genom kvalitativa intervjuer av de berörda matematiklärarna. Svaren har analyserats utifrån den teoretiska utgångspunkten sociomatematiska normer. Vi har också analyserat det matematiska innehållet i ett arbetsmaterial som kommunen har uppmanat lärarna till att använda som förberedande material. Resultatet pekar på att matematiklärares arbete påverkas i hög grad av att huvudmannen anordnar ett centralstyrt matematikprov. Detta gäller det matematiska innehållet i deras undervisning och därmed de sociomatematiska normer som råder i klassrummen. Vår slutsats är att kommunens intention att påverka lärarnas arbete infrias, men hur det på längre sikt påverkar elevers kunskapsutveckling återstår att undersöka. / A Swedish school municipality's ambitions has been to climb the school rankings. One way of doing this is to design a test for fifth grade pupils in order to discover gaps in students mathematical understandning well ahead of the national tests in the sixth grade. The purpose of this study is to investigate how this test affects the work of mathematics teachers. This has been investigated through qualitative interviews of the involved mathematics teachers. The data have been analyzed based on the theoretical starting point of socio-mathematical norms. We have also analyzed the mathematical content that the municipality has recommended the teachers to use as preparatory material. The result indicates that the work of mathematics teachers is very much influenced by the fact that the municipality organizes a central-controlled mathematics test. This applies to the mathematical content of their teaching and the socio-mathematical norms prevailing in the classrooms. Our conclusion is that the municipality can influence and alter the teachers' work both inside and outside the math class.

The purpose of this study was to examine the variables that are associated with the percentage of students who pass Tennessee's Gateway exams in high school. Associations were examined between the Gateway exams and variables such as: socioeconomic status, ethnicity, dropout rate, graduation rate, attendance, average daily membership, per-pupil expenditure, teachers' salary, and elementary-school reading scores. Pearson correlations between school characteristics and pass rates of three Gateway exams were calculated. Schools were divided into quartiles based upon socioeconomic status and ethnicity in order to examine pass rates of the Gateway exams among different quartiles. Independent samples t tests were performed to determine if differences were statistically significant. Variables that exhibited strong association with pass rates of Gateway exams were used as predictor variables and pass rates of Gateway exams were used as dependent variables in multivariable linear regressions. The findings indicated that the graduation rate and percentage of Caucasian students were most positively associated with Gateway pass rates. Dropout rates and percentage of students who qualified for free/reduced-priced meals were most negatively associated with Gateway pass rates. It was discovered that the Algebra I Gateway exam was by far the most difficult for students to pass. Almost half of the students in high schools serving poor, minority students failed the Algebra I Gateway exam in 2004.

This thesis investigates how teachers navigate Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluation while creating their own curriculum to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a former teacher, I conducted a practitioner research case study of four successful colleagues in a bilingual Pre-K-8 school in Washington, DC. When given flexibility in curriculum, teachers integrated knowledge from their relationships with students to foster a caring environment that supports learning and created their own systems of accountability by deciding what data matters. Teachers centered student engagement as what drives their curriculum and used a variety of differentiation methods based on their own “toolbox” of instructional strategies. Findings suggest a flexible curriculum model allows teachers to be curriculum makers who actively go beyond the standards to integrate knowledge from their practice and relationships with students to create curriculum that successfully supports language learners.

This thesis investigates how teachers navigate Common Core State Standards, high-stakes testing, and teacher evaluation while creating their own curriculum to meet the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students. As a former teacher, I conducted a practitioner research case study of four successful colleagues in a bilingual Pre-K-8 school in Washington, DC. When given flexibility in curriculum, teachers integrated knowledge from their relationships with students to foster a caring environment that supports learning and created their own systems of accountability by deciding what data matters. Teachers centered student engagement as what drives their curriculum and used a variety of differentiation methods based on their own “toolbox” of instructional strategies. Findings suggest a flexible curriculum model allows teachers to be curriculum makers who actively go beyond the standards to integrate knowledge from their practice and relationships with students to create curriculum that successfully supports language learners.

The purpose of this study was to investigate special education outcomes in relation to state standardized testing. It specifically sought to determine if a relationship existed between selected data from the Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) comparing district students receiving special education services TAAS scores with selected district demographic, fiscal, and special education data. The population for this study consisted of all 2001-2002 grades 3-8 and 10 public school students with the exception of charter schools, special-purpose statutory districts, and state-administered districts. The reading analysis incorporated data from 896 Texas school districts. The mathematics analysis used data from 914 school districts. Multiple linear hierarchical regression was chosen as the method for statistical analysis. Data was obtained from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) as a special data pull. For both the reading and mathematics analyses, wealth and ethnicity were statistically insignificant although ethnicity individually accounted for a large percentage of the variance for both the reading (20.3%) and mathematics (13.2%) scores as well as producing negative β weights. All other predictor variables produced varying degrees of statistical significance. Community type, socioeconomic status, instructional expenditures per students, and instructional expenditures per student receiving special education services also produced negative β weights. Two variables in this study, enrollment and the percentage of students receiving special education services tested, produced positive β weights, substantial squared structure coefficients, and positive Pearson correlation coefficients. Of these two predictors, the strongest overall positive predictor for students receiving special education services success on the grades 3-8 and 10 reading and mathematics TAAS exams was the percentage of students receiving special education services tested. These percentages produced the largest positive correlations with passing rates (reading r = .283, mathematics r = .219) and the second largest regression coefficients (reading β = .224, mathematics β = .202). They individually accounted for the largest percentage of total criterion variance (reading = 33.0%, mathematics = 22.6%). For this study, these results clearly suggested that the dominant positive predictor of testing success for students receiving special education services was the percentage of students receiving special education services tested. Conversely, socioeconomic status was the dominant negative predictor.