Thesis advisor: Henry Braun / The measurement of student academic growth is one of the most important statistical tasks in an educational accountability system. The current methods of measuring student growth adopted in most states have various drawbacks in terms of sensitivity, accuracy, and interpretability. In this thesis, we apply the conditional growth chart method, a well-developed diagnostic tool in pediatrics, to student longitudinal test data to produce descriptive and diagnostic statistics about students' academic growth trajectory. We also introduce an innovative simulation-extrapolation (SIMEX) method which corrects for measurement error-induced bias in the estimation of the conditional growth model. Our simulation study shows that the proposed method has an advantage in terms of mean squared error of the estimators, when compared with the growth model that ignores measurement error. Our data analysis demonstrates that the conditional growth chart method, when combined with the SIMEX method, can be a powerful tool in the educational accountability system. It produces more sensitive and accurate measures of student growth than the other currently available methods; it provides diagnostic information that is easily understandable to teachers, parents and students themselves; the individual level growth measures can also be aggregated to school level as an indicator of school growth. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Research, Measurement, and Evaluation.

Education policy is frequently in the crosshairs of ideological disagreement. This dissertation analyzes three controversial policies over which elected school boards often have control: charter schools, suspension bans, and ability groups. How do charter schools impact district academic growth? Researchers typically focus on large districts with many charter schools, but the most common experience is an average-sized district shifting from no charters to one. A difference-in-differences design analyzing a decade of charter expansion in California reveals that impact is contingent on charter type: locally funded charters (i.e. affiliated with the district) lead to either static or decreased growth while directly funded charters (i.e. independent of the district) lead to higher academic growth. Many policymakers have banned or limited suspensions for all but the most serious offenses. The 2013 suspension ban in Los Angeles Unified School District provides a natural experiment; it led to a substantial, 0.2 standard deviation decrease in academic growth among middle schools that had previously issued the banned suspensions. Four subsequent suspension bans – in San Francisco, Pasadena, Oakland, and (grades K-3) all of California – also appear to have harmed academic growth. Simultaneously, suspension bans have an uncertain relationship with dropout rates, the primary mechanism by which bans are meant to impact the school-to-prison pipeline. Instead of banning suspensions, policymakers should carefully test other efforts that decrease suspension and dropout rates without harming academic growth. Finally, educators have utilized between-class ability grouping – sorting students in one grade into different classes by prior ability – for over a century. Proponents rely on a previously untested mechanism: decreased classroom dispersion in prior academic ability allows teachers to target their instruction more narrowly. This final paper measures classroom dispersion directly for the same students over four trimesters. Multivariate regressions and multilevel models evaluate the relationship between classroom dispersion and academic growth while controlling for other classroom characteristics as well as student, teacher, and school effects. Analyses reveal that English classrooms with less dispersion in prior ability experience slightly less growth. However, there is a trade-off: between-class ability grouping improves equity at the expense of overall academic growth.

This quantitative, nonexperimental study addressed the gap between research-established benefits and outcomes of social-emotional learning implementation as compared to actual instances of implementation. It has been suggested that social-emotional learning as a systemic initiative is necessary for school health (Elias et al., 2013). Additionally, most educators relay some confidence in the importance of social-emotional learning; however, around half report actual implementation within their school (Atwell & Bridgeland, 2019). Focusing on social-emotional learning as a whole as well as the specificity of use of CASEL SELect programs, the research questions of this study explored differences between implementation and usage, length of implementation, poverty classification, student growth composite (as measure by TVAAS composite), and attendance in elementary schools in Tennessee. There were two significant findings in this study. First, Tennessee elementary schools using a social-emotional learning program that is not CASEL SELect were found to have significantly higher attendance than schools using a CASEL SELect program. Additionally, Tennessee elementary schools classified as Title I were found to be more likely to use a CASEL SELect program than a program that is not CASEL SELect.

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Educators have a responsibility to foster a positive school climate while also ensuring that all students meet established educational benchmarks and make adequate growth. The relationship between school climate and student achievement is well-documented, but there is a gap in the literature examining the relationships among school climate, academic growth, and benchmark achievement. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate relationships among school climate, academic growth, and benchmark achievement at the elementary school level in Virginia. A nonexperimental, correlational design was used to address this research question: What are the relationships, if any, among school climate, academic growth, and benchmark achievement among fourth grade students in three school divisions in Virginia for the 2022-2023 school year? Existing data sets from 73 schools within 3 school divisions in Virginia were used: (a) the 2023 Virginia Survey of School Climate and Working Conditions, (b) fourth graders' Fall 2022 to Spring 2023 growth in reading and mathematics on the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress assessment, and (c) fourth graders' mean performance on the 2023 Virginia Standards of Learning assessments in reading and mathematics. A correlational analysis was conducted to examine the relationships among these variables. Results were analyzed, and there were 12 findings. The most significant finding was a stronger positive relationship between school climate and benchmark achievement in reading and mathematics than between school climate and academic growth in either subject. This study contributes to the body of research on school climate and benchmark achievement by addressing relationships among school climate, academic growth, and benchmark achievement. / Doctor of Education / Educators have a responsibility to foster a positive school climate while also ensuring that all students meet established educational benchmarks and make adequate growth. The relationship between school climate and student achievement is well-documented, but there is a gap in the literature examining the relationships among school climate, academic growth, and benchmark achievement. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate relationships among school climate, academic growth, and benchmark achievement at the elementary school level in Virginia. A nonexperimental, correlational design was used to address this research question: What are the relationships, if any, among school climate, academic growth, and benchmark achievement among fourth grade students in three school divisions in Virginia for the 2022-2023 school year? Existing data sets from 73 schools within 3 school divisions in Virginia were used: (a) the 2023 Virginia Survey of School Climate and Working Conditions, (b) fourth graders' Fall 2022 to Spring 2023 growth in reading and mathematics on the Northwest Evaluation Association Measures of Academic Progress assessment, and (c) fourth graders' mean performance on the 2023 Virginia Standards of Learning assessments in reading and mathematics. A correlational analysis was conducted to examine the relationships among these variables. Results were analyzed, and there were 12 findings. The most significant finding was a stronger positive relationship between school climate and benchmark achievement in reading and mathematics than between school climate and academic growth in either subject.

A school district on a Native American reservation in the southwestern region of the U.S. decided to implement the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP) to improve teacher instructional effectiveness and student academic achievement. Although researchers have documented successes of the TAP in high-poverty urban school districts across the U.S., little is known regarding the TAP implementation in remote Native American cultural context schools. The purpose of this study was to investigate if the collaborative process of the TAP implementation changed the teachers' instructional practices. Using Vygotsky's social constructivism, which emphasizes that learning happens through interactions and cooperation of people in their environments, this qualitative case study investigated 9 teachers' perceptions of the TAP implementation using interview, walkthrough observation and document analysis at the schools. The research questions focused on teachers' perceptions of TAP elements, their experiences, changes in practices and the influence of the Native American setting. A qualitative data analysis software program and constant comparison method were used to manage and analyze the qualitative data. Findings indicated that positive collegial collaboration, teacher attitude, and instructional change were associated with the TAP implementation, teacher evaluation (most challenging experience), teacher professional growth, and student academic achievement growth (most rewarding experiences). A district professional development plan was created to build on the strength of the TAP collegial collaboration and to meet the rigorous demand of the new state College and Career Readiness standards. The change of teachers' working in isolation to collegial collaboration reflects a positive social change for continuous inquiry into both student and teacher learning.

This study at hand has two main purposes: (1) a survey of the constancy of the results of four years of group intelligence testing in three schools of Denton, Texas: the Robert E. Lee School, the Sam Houston School, and the Teachers College Demonstration School; and (2) a study of the variability of academic and social growth in one elementary school grade.

過去關於父母參與效果的研究發現：父母參與有助於提升子女的學習成就。由於父母參與被視為一種社會資本或文化資本的延伸，父母參與的愈多，其子女學習效果也愈好。有鑑於此，本研究主要在探討父母參與在家庭社經地位和子女學習成就之間所扮演的角色，並將研究目的細分為三個研究議題。首先，根據智力發展理論與認知能力成長曲線相關研究，第一個議題探討臺灣青少年學生學習成長軌跡的發展與變化情形為何？接著，運用 Bourdieu 的文化資本與 Coleman 的社會資本的概念說明父母參與的重要性，其它兩個議題則探討家庭社經地位對子女學習成長軌跡的影響歷程中，父母參與扮演著中介效果還是交互作用效果？ 原始資料來源取自臺灣教育長期追蹤資料庫（Taiwan Education Panel Survey）公共使用版中的第一波到第四波國中長期追蹤樣本，使用潛在成長曲線模型進行次級資料分析。研究結果發現：1.就整體學習發展型態來看，臺灣青少年學生學習成長軌跡的發展是一種非線性遞增減速的成長曲線，年級愈高，學習成長速率愈慢；2.就個別學習成長軌跡而言，學生間起始狀態與成長速率有個別差異現象，進一步透過潛在成長混合模型的分析，發現學生學習成長軌跡的發展型態並無類別上的差異；3.學生的起始能力會影響學習成長速率的變化而產生馬太效應；4.隨著時間的遞移，高起始能力組的學生，其學習成長速率高於低起始能力組的學生，兩者的學習成就間差距會逐漸擴大而產生扇形擴散效應；5.父母參與對子女學習成就表現有顯著正向的短期立即效果與長期延宕效果，但波段與波段之間的延宕效果則沒有顯著差異；6.在家庭社經地位對子女學習成長軌跡的影響歷程中，父母參與扮演著部份中介而不調節的影響效果。 最後，依據上述研究發現，就研究結果與研究方法兩方面，將提出相關研究建議以供實務參考及後續研究之用。 / The previous research has shown that parental involvement produces measurable gains in student achievement. Since parental involvement is seen as a form of social capital and cultural capital, it is possible that the more a student owns parental involvement, the bigger the effect is. Thus, this study explores what role parental involvement plays between parents’ social-economic status and their children’s academic performance. The major purpose is further categorized into three specific questions. Based on the intelligence developmental theory and growth curve analyses of cognitive ability, the first is to inquire what patterns the development and change of academic growth trajectories of Taiwanese teenager’s academic performance are. Using the concepts of Bourdieu’s cultural capital and Coleman’s social capital to explain the importance of parental involvement, the other two purposes are to explore whether the effects of parental involvement on adolescent academic growth trajectories are mediated or moderated by family socioeconomic status. Using the data from the public released core panel data of the Taiwan Education Panel Survey (TEPS) in 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2007, this study employs the method of the latent growth curve modeling to address research questions. The results are the following: (1) Academic growth trajectory of Taiwan adolescence’s achievement reveals a nonlinear de-accelerating growth curve; (2) There are significant individual differences in both the initial status and growth rate of achievement among students, but further employing different latent growth mixture models shows no individual differences in the patterns of academic growth trajectories; (3) The Matthew Effects occur in the academic growth trajectories of Taiwanese teenagers; (4) Students with lower initial status learn more slowly over time than those with higher initial status do, and the “fan-spread” effect is found; (5) There are positive short-term and longer term effects of parental involvement on the Taiwanese adolescents’ academic achievement performance, but no significant difference among patterns of longer term effects over 6 years; (6) The effects of parental involvement are partially mediated, but not moderated by family SES. Finally, the study discusses the implications of parental involvement and suggests directions for future research.