The purpose of this study was to identify relationships between an urban high school*s student participation in an after-school tutoring program and its relationship to accountability measures on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Reading and End of Course (EOC) exams in the 2013-2014 school year. The research aimed to determine the influence of tutoring participation for urban high school students. Participants included students enrolled in one urban high school who participated in the FCAT Reading and EOC assessments and is was identified if they participated in the school tutoring program or not. Quantitative results revealed the relationship between students* frequency of participation and performance outcomes on state assessments. Then, the relationship between achievement on state assessments for all students, students with disabilities, and English Learners who participated in after school tutoring and those who did not participate in after school tutoring were examined. Finally, the relations of frequency of participation in tutoring to corresponding final grades were evaluated. Participants included students enrolled in one urban high school who participated in the FCAT Reading and EOC assessments and it was identified if they participated in the after school tutoring program or not. Statistically significant differences in performance outcomes existed between tutored students in mathematics courses who participated in tutoring and those who did not. However, there was no statistically significant difference in performance outcomes with students in courses that were heavily based on reading as a result of their participation in tutoring. The students with disabilities subgroup as well as the English Learners subgroup both experienced statistically significant differences in reading scores as a result in tutoring participation. These same subgroups did not experience statistically significant difference on other assessments: Algebra 1 EOC, Geometry EOC, Biology EOC, and U.S. History EOC. Although this study identified relationships tutoring participation had with accountability measures achieved by students there is still much to be understood. The structure and approach to tutoring intervention programs should continue to be sought after in research in an effort to continue providing all students with opportunities for success on high stakes testing.

This study focused on school counselor accountability practices. The role of the school counselor is changing and the need to be more accountable is now here. This study attempted to answer several critical questions regarding school counselor accountability. It examined the degree to which school counselors use accountability measures, to what extent they believed certain accountability practices were deemed helpful to their school counseling program, and what they believed their barriers were. Accountability is a “hot” topic in present school counseling literature; but little research has been done up to this point investigating these issues related to school counselor accountability nor school counselors’ perceptions and beliefs about them. This study attempted to delve into those perceptions and beliefs. Participants were members of state school counseling associations from across the United States. Three hundred seventy-five school counselors participated. Of those, 70.2% were currently using accountability practices. A total of 47.4% of the participants report presently being required to implement accountability practices. The most frequently reported barrier to accountability practices was that it was “too time consuming.” The most frequently reported type of assistance desired from professional organizations or university programs was training. Support was reported most frequently as the type of assistance desired from school systems. Results from other analyses are also included. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for further research are provided.

Student retention has become a serious topic in the past several decades (Wild and Ebbers, 2002). Problematic, however, is how retention is defined and measured, as well as a lack of multi-institutional studies that support a theoretical model for improving student retention, particularly in community colleges (Bailey & Alfonso, 2005). The Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) was launched in 2001. Based on extensive research that pertains to student learning and persistence, CCSSE defined five benchmarks of educational practice. Three of the benchmarks comprise the Retention Index. CCSSE has encouraged additional studies to further validate the relatively new survey instrument. Florida's legislature has a keen interest in the performance of educational institutions which are mandated by statute to participate in system-wide data collection from which accountability measures are drawn, including institutional retention rates. Using institutional level data in simple and multiple linear regressions, this study examined the relationship between the Florida Community Colleges' CCSSE Retention Indices and their retention rate(s) measured by the Florida Accountability Measure. Student level data was also analyzed using a Nested ANOVA to examine mean differences in CCSSE Retention Index scores of students from different racial and gender groups when accounting for the possible influence of institution attended.

The lack of timely reporting of commercial fisheries landings interferes with effective management of fisheries in United States Virgin Islands (USVI). Federal law requires that landings be limited to prevent annual catch limits (ACLs) from being exceeded. Previous attempts to predict total landings have used historic data from prior fishing seasons to predict future landings rather than leveraging available in-season data to provide a more real-time prediction of landings. This study presents an in-season model that predicts total landings using partial reports from the current fishing year. This estimate of total landings, including error bounds around that estimate, can then be compared to the ACL established for the species to estimate potential deviations from the allowable landings and adjust effort accordingly. The performance of the model was tested in a retrospective analysis on historical commercial landings data. Differences between predicted and observed fishing year landings by defined cut-off dates were used to identify reasonable deadlines for fishery managers to begin making reliable predictions on total annual landings. On average, predictions can be made with less than 9% error with at least four months of partial data, and with less than 5% error with at least seven months of partial data. This model's in-season predictions should be useful to managers to prevent ACL overages, and to guide fishers in their application of effort within and among components of the fishery, for example, to shift effort from one fishery management unit to another in response to excessive landings.

In order to illustrate, I begin this report with an account of some of my experiences as a bilingual teacher, instructing curriculum designed to elicit student reflections their language ideologies and engaging praxis. The data includes student responses to a writing prompt and interview which elicited their language ideologies. Some of the student comments were striking due to their recognition of the higher status of English. The student-collected data aided me in evaluating my curriculum and instruction and inform my future practice. My report ends with a proposal to investigate these issues more deeply by conducting a study on student language ideologies. / text