<p> With an increased focus on global competition, many educators and policymakers relied on international assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to evaluate the ability of their education system to prepare students for the global economy. Students in the United States continued to demonstrate disappointing results on the PISA, which led to an outcry by American educators and policymakers and a call for reform. To lessen the achievement gap between the United States and other countries, experts suggested the importance of identifying the characteristics of high performing countries and adapting effective policies to fit the needs of the United States. </p><p> The current study sought to provide a research-based foundation for school reform in the United States by initially seeking relationships between research-based factors of school working conditions and learning environments (initial teacher education and professional development; teacher appraisal and feedback; school climate; school leadership; and teachers&rsquo; instructional beliefs and pedagogical practices) from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and student achievement. Then, where relationships occurred, the researcher ascertained the extent of differences within those factors between the United States and the top five, middle five, and lowest five performing countries that participated in both the 2012 PISA and 2013 TALIS. </p><p> The analysis of the data revealed several relationships among factors of school working conditions and learning environments and student achievement. The results also indicated several differences within these factors between the United States and the selected countries. Based on these results the researcher offered several recommendations to educators and policymakers in the United States, such as providing teachers with the time and skill to offer each other meaningful feedback, completing further research on the efficacy of utilizing student performance data in evaluation frameworks, allowing teachers more meaningful opportunities to reflect and collaborate in order to foster common beliefs about teaching and learning, and providing additional training to teachers in the United States on the appropriate and effective use of assessment strategies.</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to explore the noncore secondary teachers' lived experience with Georgia's Teacher Keys Effectiveness System (TKES) evaluative feedback. This descriptive phenomenological study examined Georgia's noncore teachers' use of evaluative feedback from TKES to inform and impact classroom effectiveness. The essence of the experience of receiving evaluative feedback is revealed through in depth interviews with 30 noncore secondary teachers from three districts in Georgia. </p><p> The findings in this study suggest that TKES evaluative feedback has the potential to support a positive change in the noncore classroom provided appropriate time and resources are dedicated to implementing the evaluative process with fidelity. Traits of effective feedback that resonate throughout the literature review and study findings are the need for feedback to be specific, timely, ongoing, and linked to professional development. The need in the noncore classroom for teachers to receive content-specific feedback was uncovered. Additionally, the need to build additional time and resources into the school year to ensure evaluative feedback has the potential to accomplish the goal of teacher growth and become a positive part of the teaching profession was uncovered. The findings of this study allow an opportunity for the voice of the noncore teachers' experience with TKES evaluative feedback to be heard, generating a pathway to improved feedback and growth in their classroom.</p><p>

<p> This study examined the facilitators and barriers to the implementation of an innovative, whole-school reform model, Expeditionary Learning, within the context of the high-stakes accountability policy environment. Twenty-four teachers and four principals were interviewed across four schools, two of which were high poverty and two of which were low poverty. All schools were K-8 charter schools and located either within the urban core or in an inner-ring suburb. Educators across schools reported agreement with the tenets of Expeditionary Learning and a desire to implement the program fully. They preferred this learning model that focuses on student choice, inquiry, and experiential education over more traditional learning models. Respondents pointed to the pressure and time constraints caused by high-stakes standardized tests as barriers to their full implementation of Expeditionary Learning. They also saw the standardized tests as largely misaligned with the model. Educators in high-poverty schools reported more anxiety around the tests and their students&rsquo; performance. Respondents across schools agreed that Expeditionary Learning was a team effort that required significant time and effort to implement with fidelity. Educators at high-poverty schools reported teacher retention and hiring policies as major barriers to implementing Expeditionary Learning, largely because collaborative teams of teachers were unable to coalesce. Other factors affecting implementation of the program included curricular standards that focused on breadth and not depth, a lack of resources, and parent and community support. Overall, the study found that district and state policies served primarily as a constraint to implementation of Expeditionary Learning, and high-poverty schools were more negatively affected by external policies than were low-poverty schools. The ability to function as an Expeditionary Learning school was ultimately based on how well internal practices were able to work with or counteract external policies.</p><p>

<p> This multimethod, multiphase study was designed to determine the impact of charter school reform on achievement in North Carolina. The study was designed to be an analysis of the relationship between classroom climate, interactions, and student achievement, through a complexity systems context. This methodology allowed for combined qualitative, quantitative, network analysis, and agent-based modeling to capture the simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic interactions in classrooms. The data for the study were drawn from eighth-grade mathematics teachers and students at four charter schools in a North Carolina urban area (<i>n</i> = 300). Through the analysis of data, a more detailed and nuanced picture of the relationship between classroom climate, interactions, and charter school achievement emerged. The findings suggest that teacher control and second-semester math grades are statistically significant; the higher the level of control teachers exercise, the higher students score on common core achievement. According to the findings of this study, North Carolina charter schools have served as a successful reform strategy to address the achievement gap problem in North Carolina, with school-specific strategies including high teacher support, students&rsquo; teaching students, IAP/tutoring/online supplemental program, and small classrooms. All schools, on average, scored 30.9% to 56.8% higher on grade-level proficiency (GLP) than the North Carolina 2014&ndash;2015 average. The network analysis showed how classrooms can be more or less complex in different ways with instructional, emotional support, and behavior management interactions that fit into network structures of teacher to one-student, teacher to whole class, whole class to teacher, and student to student or students. The predictive ABM, based on achievement scores over time, school achievement strategy, classroom climate, high teacher control, and second-semester math grades, demonstrated accuracy. The ABM captured macroclassroom and microstudent outcomes, along with climate changes based on interactions that either increased or reduced positive climate. This is important because a teacher has limited resources and must deal with uncontrollable influences from outside the classroom. Teachers have the power to create a positive or negative climate by their verbal and nonverbal interactions. Teachers&rsquo; interactions have consequences that impact students&rsquo; achievement and students&rsquo; lives. Consequently, every interaction matters.</p>

<p> The effects of Tennessee&rsquo;s Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI²) framework were evaluated to determine the impact on one middle Tennessee public school district. General education teacher&rsquo;s beliefs, student achievement, and special education referral and eligibility data was assessed before, during, and after implementation. Results indicate that teacher&rsquo;s beliefs were mixed and varied according to the time participants were surveyed. Significant achievement differences were found on TVAAS math fifth grade, TVAAS reading fourth grade, and STAR reading and math scores. Practical significance was noted for students referred and made eligible for special education. A recommendation that RTI&sup2; supports student achievement and decrease special education services was derived, while teacher&rsquo;s indicated a greater need for implementation support.</p>

<p> The research design is a quantitative causal comparative method. The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) which measures student scores included assessments in mathematics and reading. The design study called for an examination of how type of small learning community (SLC) or the type non-SLC high school environment affected student achievement in FCAT mathematics, FCAT reading, graduation rates, and entrance into college/post secondary education, employment, and teacher job satisfaction using analysis of variance. Results indicate that students who participated in SLCs were more likely to graduate from high school than their non-SLC counterparts. SLCs seem to be supportive of both high school completion and education beyond the high school diploma. Participating teachers provided self-reported levels of employment satisfaction using the Mohrman-Cooke-Mohrman Job Satisfaction Scales (MCMJSS). Results of the ANOVA analysis indicate that SLC teachers do demonstrate a significantly higher rate of job satisfaction than their non-SLC colleagues indicate the probability that the relation between the variables found in the sample (<i> p</i> &lt; .001) was significant. The results of this study were that SLCs improve student graduation rates, students&rsquo; entering college and post-secondary education and further expanded the empirical evidence that teachers in SLCs have increased job satisfaction.</p>

<p> This study examines college entry experiences (enrollment, orientation, assessment, and support services) and their contribution to the persistence of nontraditional students enrolled in community colleges. By reviewing the current retention research and models on academic integration, social integration, involvement, engagement and the construct of resilience, college entry experiences were identified and correlated to the work of Tinto, Astin, Kuh, and other researchers. Based on the findings of each of the four college entry experiences, this study provides insights and offers recommendations to community college presidents, deans, community college leaders, professors, student advisors, and enrollment specialists to establish innovative and highly effective intrusive advising support structures, nontraditional retention framework considerations, and cohort learning models to increase student engagement, reach optimal student persistence term to term, and produce cutting-edge degree completion rates. </p>

<p> As a local education agency, school districts play an important role in providing instructional support for teachers and school leaders, making instructional goals, and allocating financial and human capital resources in a rational way to promote overall students&rsquo; learning outcomes. Studies on school districts that look to find reasons or characteristics related to school district success are known as <i>district effectiveness research </i> (DER). Previous quantitative research in DER using longitudinal dataset has assumed that all school district effectiveness (SDE) changes in a common pattern through a traditional ordinary linear regression or a hierarchal linear model while ignoring the probability that there might exist distinct subgroups of school district effectiveness trajectories. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine the existence of different SDE trajectories and how school district demographic variables and financial expenditures affect classification of SDE groups using a growth mixture model (GMM) with a national longitudinal dataset containing all public school districts in all 50 states and Washington D.C. from 2009 to 2015 (<i>n</i> = 11,185). The results indicated that (a) there are three different classes of school district effectiveness growth trajectories, which can be named as a constant SDE group (3.66%), a decreasing SDE group (34.16%), and an increasing SDE group (62.18%); (b) school district demographic characteristics such as a percentage of free lunch students and general administration expenditure per pupil are significantly associated with the probability of a school district being classified to a specific group; and (c) the longitudinal effects of school district demographic covariates and financial expenditures within each class such as school district locations (e.g., urban, suburban, etc.) are associated with the growth factors (intercept and slopes) in different ways. </p><p>

<p> The ability to think critically and complexly amid novel experiences that require self- and other-awareness is something that leaders in an array of social institutions seek to develop in their communities. Global and Diversity Learning (GDL) practices, one category of high impact practices (Kuh, 2008), aim to increase students&rsquo; awareness of self and others and imbue critical thinking skills that will help students see how their own background and experiences interact with those of peers. This study aims to understand the relationship of four GDL practices (education abroad, multicultural programming, intercultural living-learning communities, and global studies coursework) to desired learning outcomes. Through completing ANCOVAs and multiple regression analyses on an existing dataset of GDL participants, this study demonstrates the influence of gender, socio-economic status, and citizenship within GDL practice types. The study findings also reveal significant differences between group members&rsquo; other awareness and critical thinking capacity. Understanding how different GDL practice types affect capacity development will allow university leadership to direct collaboration between departments and align programming, to allocate resources more effectively, and communicate potential outcomes based on empirical data.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this research was to evaluate the efficacy of Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) triage during actual mass casualty incidents (MCI) and full-scale MCI exercises. Developed in 1984, Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment triage was created to assist in the process of triaging large quantities of injured patients from natural or manmade disasters and has since been the nationally accepted triage model in the United States. Historically, limited studies have shown patients are in fact, over-triaged 53% of the time. The research goal was to obtain substantial data to determine whether first responders&rsquo; use of the current triage model effectively sustains life. A mixed methods research analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected from one historical MCI incident and three MCI exercises was evaluated to develop recommendations for protocol change and future curriculum development. Data analysis from actual incidents and exercises confirm that &ldquo;just-in-time&rdquo; training does increase the accuracy of the START triage model used from 42% to 73%. </p><p>