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This dissertation contributes to the educational literature by providing new research on the achievement gap in the Southwest. For this study, a sequential mixed-methods approach was employed. The quantitative research assessed which factors influenced academic achievement among a 2012 high school graduating class (N=2,238) through analyses using correlation, ANOVA and HLM. Additionally, qualitative themes from 15 in-depth ethnographic teacher interviews and 116 teacher surveys from low income schools were triangulated with the quantitative findings to describe the multiple, interconnected factors that affected student achievement from the teacher's viewpoint. The low income schools in this study were defined as `hardship schools' because they had a high percentage of free and reduced lunch participants, a high minority population, low academic achievement, and frequent turnover in the administrative staff. The findings indicated that a statistically significant academic gap existed between high and low income schools. However, the longitudinal student standardized scores from elementary (5th grade) to high school (10th grade) revealed that the gap did not widen over time between high and low income students. Although students from low income schools lacked social capital and other resources available to their wealthier peers, they were still able to make equivalent academic growth, albeit at a lower performance level. It was argued that a pivotal reason that the gap did not widen was due to a dedicated teacher cadre that chose to work in low income middle schools. These teachers expressed a high level of self efficacy and cultural competency and identified with the students and the surrounding community. Their sense of identification came from one of three sources: similar ethnic background, including Latino culture and language; similar socio-economic upbringing, including poverty and the hardships associated with being an economic underclass; and/or cultural competency, where curiosity and love of diversity is emphasized. This identification helped teachers level the playing field by relating to students and making learning relevant to their environment.

Thesis advisor: Vincent Cho / District leaders are under tremendous pressure to narrow disparities in achievement in an effort to close the achievement gap without tremendous guidance from policy makers, researchers or literature. Rorrer, Skrla, and Scheurich (2008) proposed a theory that district leaders enact four essential roles when engaging in systemic reform that improves achievement and equity: (1) providing instructional leadership which consists of building capacity and generating will, (2) reorienting the organization, (3) establishing policy coherence, and (4) maintaining an equity focus. This research examined the essential role of maintaining a focus on equity as a complex multiple construct. This qualitative case study explored how leaders in a Massachusetts public school district that made gains in improving achievement, attempted to maintain a focus on equity when enacting the role of instructional leadership. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews and a review of documents, this study concluded that leaders enacted the role to varying degrees in some ways that were consistent with Rorrer, et al. (2008). Data revealed that leaders attempted to address inequities through responsive leadership practices that connected with their notion of equity as it related to language, special needs, emotional wellness and poverty. Recommendations include how leaders can enact the role in a more informed, intentional, and deliberate manner through the development of Culturally Responsive Instructional Leadership. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Eric Dearing / Emerging research in developmental psychology and neuroscience suggests that childhood poverty is associated with high levels of exposure to multiple contextual risks, which cumulatively lead to persistent elevated stress levels that have a direct, as well an indirect (e.g., through parental processes), impact on child cognitive, academic, and socioemotional functioning (Evans & Kim, 2013). Such research has begun to change the way that scholars and practitioners envision the context of poverty, the persistence of the income-achievement gap, and the types of interventions that may be most effective in addressing disparities in children’s long-term educational success. However, research on the relations between poverty-associated stress and child outcomes is still in its infancy and many questions remain. In particular, it is unclear whether changing family economic circumstances matter, a question of concern for developmental science and public policy. Moreover, there is little work on moderators of relations between income, stress, and child outcomes, which could help identify factors that buffer children from the harm of stressful home environments. With longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics’ Child Development Supplement, the present study used fixed effects models to examine within-child associations between changes in family income, cumulative risk exposure (as measured by an index that includes a range of poverty-related stressors, such as economic strain, neighborhood crime, and physical and psychological home environments), and children’s cognitive, academic and socioemotional functioning. In addition, moderators of these associations were investigated in order to identify potential protective mechanisms and crucial levers for interventions and policy development. On the whole, findings were consistent with the cumulative stress model. On average, the estimated direct effects of changes in family income (i.e., prior to examining mediation or moderators) were not significant for changes in child outcomes. Yet, changes in income were, for the sample as a whole, indirectly related via changes in cumulative risk exposure: increases in income predicted decreases in cumulative risk exposure which, in turn, predicted improvements in achievement and declines in externalizing behavior. Additionally, these relations were moderated by child age, initial level of family income, and initial level of cumulative risk. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

Thesis advisor: Diana C. Pullin / This dissertation examines how district- and school-level leaders' understanding of achievement gaps influences the work of leadership in addressing educational inequities and broadening students' opportunity to learn. While the reporting of disaggregated data by student subgroup confirms that achievement gaps exist, reports from high-stakes testing fail to provide district- and school-level leaders with the diagnostic data needed to identify key factors inhibiting student performance. Yet, identifying and understanding factors hindering student performance is critical knowledge for leaders to cultivate as they work to address elements within their school or district that may need to change if student learning is to improve. Results from this single case study in a diverse urban district illuminate how district- and school-level leaders can challenge and support their community as they work collectively to confront and address issues related to disparities in student performance. Drawing on previous research, which introduced the cognitive shift as a unit of analysis for studying the work of leadership, this study identifies shifts in thinking that district- and school-level leaders attempted to prompt in others, as well as the framing strategies district- and school-level leaders used in their attempts to prompt identified shifts in thinking. The study found that district- and school-level leaders attempted to prompt a common set of cognitive shifts using a range of framing strategies. Furthermore, the study found a correlation between leaders' use of a particular of framing strategy and their level of leadership (i.e., district or school), with common patterns of strategy use unique to each level of leadership. Additionally, distinct patterns of strategy use also emerged for the leaders of the district's top performing schools which differed from the patterns of strategy use that emerged for the leaders of the district's lower performing schools. These findings suggest that certain framing strategies may be more effective than others. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate and examine specific kindergarten through third grade practices perceived as contributing to literacy achievement at 3 high-achieving elementary schools within the Washington County Virginia Public School System. The study was completed through a process of open-ended interviews with participants comprising classroom teachers, reading specialists, and administrators. The findings from this study may assist practitioners by providing information relative to programs, resources and instructional strategies that are perceived as contributing to literacy achievement. The findings of this study suggested that the perceptions among classroom teachers, reading specialists, and administrators regarding literacy practices were parallel. In summation, the participants’ perceptions included a balanced approach to literacy instruction with an emphasis on the following: phonics acquisition in kindergarten through second grade; a focus on explicit comprehension instruction beginning in third grade; development of vocabulary to increase background knowledge and comprehension; frequent opportunities for independent reading practice; targeted instruction in small-group and one-on-one settings; and the use of supplemental literacy and assessment resources. Recommendations from this study included the consideration of providing balanced literacy instruction in kindergarten through third grade; an emphasis on phonics skills in kindergarten through second grade, and an emphasis on comprehension skills beginning in third grade; frequent and consistent guided and independent reading time within the classroom setting; an increased emphasis on vocabulary development; the provision of targeted small-group and one-on-one instruction; and the use of supplemental literacy and assessment resources.

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference between a student’s reading/language arts TCAP scale score and his or her lunch status for students in grades three, four, & five within two school systems in Tennessee. The population consisted of 2,442 students who were in grades three, four, and five during the 2014-2015 school year in a city school system in east Tennessee and a county school system in middle Tennessee. The Kruskal-Wallis H, a non-parametric test, was used to identify statistically significant differences in the medians of the reading/language arts TCAP scores across the three types of lunch payment status. The independent variable was the type of student lunch status (free, reduced, and full pay). The dependent variable was the reading/language arts TCAP scale score of students in grade three, four, and five. The quantitative findings revealed the relationship between student lunch status group and reading/language arts TCAP scale score was significant for all four research questions. In all analyses, the difference in the reading/language arts TCAP scale scores of students in the free lunch status group and the full pay lunch status group was significant. When the data from both school systems were combined, there was a significant difference in the scale scores between the free and full pay lunch status groups, the free and reduced lunch status groups, and the reduced and full pay lunch status groups.

In the city selected for this study, only 29% of inner-city students scored proficiently on standardized tests, whereas 71% of their peers at nearby suburban and affluent schools achieved the proficiency level. To address the gap, the local district implemented ability grouping in one charter school. The purpose of this ex post facto quasi-experimental study was to examine the effect of ability grouping among inner-city students in mathematics as an instructional intervention for improving student achievement. Ability grouping theory as an instructional strategy was used as the theoretical framework for this study. The criterion measure of mathematics improvement was provided by the test results from the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measure of Academic Progress (NWEA-MAP), a computer-adaptive assessment of mathematics. Using population data for 2012-2014 inner-city 8th graders who took the pretest and posttest NWEA-MAP (N = 234), two 1-way analyses of variances were used to test for mean differences in the NWEA-MAP improvement scores between ability-grouped (n = 115) and non-ability-grouped (n = 115) students, then specifically between students who were grouped as high ability (n = 55) and low ability (n = 55). The ability-grouped students had significantly higher improvement scores than did the nongrouped students. For those students who were ability grouped, no statistically significant difference existed in improvement between the high and low ability groups. A position paper was developed recommending student grouping to improve academic performance of inner-city school students. Positive social change will occur as the achievement gap is closed for students who attend inner-city schools.

This study focused on the continued mathematical achievement gap between African American and Latino students in an urban elementary school. An illustrative case study design was used to examine the teachers' perception of factors contributing to this gap in mathematical performance, and what instructional math strategies can narrow the achievement gap. Socioconstructivism and culturally relevant pedagogy were the learning theories used to form the conceptual framework in this study. Qualitative data were obtained from 6 individual interviews with 4th grade math educators, classroom observations, and teacher artifacts. Data analysis in this study included data triangulation and coding, as well as identification of common themes as an important analytical approach to enhance the credibility of this study. Methods for minimizing bias and error included peer debriefing and member-checking, which consisted of obtaining feedback from participants to ensure the trustworthiness of findings. The key results of this study indicated that teachers perceived that 4th grade African American students often lacked basic skills and background knowledge for their school grade. Based upon the findings, the outcome was a plan for professional development training to help teachers gain knowledge on how to incorporate cultural relevant pedagogy, through strategies that include differentiating learning instructions and mastery learning into their classrooms, to narrow the mathematical achievement gap between African American and Latino 4th grade students. Implications for positive social change from this study include providing teachers with research-based strategies targeted toward narrowing the mathematical achievement gap between 4th grade African American and Latino students at the local and district site.