<p> The purpose of this mixed method case study, on the continued implementation of common assessments developed within Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), was to investigate possible relationships between teacher collaboration, common assessments and End of Course (EOC) assessments. The researcher investigated the perceptions of teachers and administrators in a Midwest secondary setting on common assessment development and utilization on the culture of teaching and data-driven decision making. </p><p> The information from this study will provide the researched school district as well as others with insights into their implementation of PLCs and specifically the development and utilization of common assessments. In order to evaluate student learning in a classroom setting, the state of Missouri piloted SLOs in public schools in the 2016-2017 school year. Common assessments are a staple of the SLO process to foster collaborative use of assessment results and data-informed instruction to address student learning outcomes. Data collection included each of the EOC assessed academic departments, the researcher surveyed teachers and interviewed supervising principals and participating teachers. In order to evaluate common assessments, the researcher collected student achievement data through SLO pre-assessments EOC scores during the 2015-2016 school year. The study utilized the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient to conduct analysis of the two data points to determine the strength of the relationship. </p><p> Through evaluating common assessment utilization, this study intended to address potential modifications needed in common assessment and accompanying practices in the school&rsquo;s PLC setting. By completing quantitative analysis of common assessment scores and qualitative data from surveys and interviews the researcher ascertained: Government and English PLC revealed a relationship between their instruction and corresponding assessments; Algebra had a modest relationship while Biology failed to connect classroom to assessments. Through qualitative data analysis, the researcher determined a need for continual professional development around assessment and data literacy to better support teachers with increased accountability of SLO implementation in future school years. Further, implications of the study could serve to assist schools in the implementation of SLOs and ancillary areas of assessment, teacher collaboration, and data use for school advancement and impacting student outcomes.</p>

This thesis is concerned with an examination of modular-flexible scheduling and the attitudes and opinions of industrial arts teachers employing this type of scheduling.

This is an analytical study of the administration of trips for athletic competition for boys in selected Texas public high schools.

The purpose of this study was to determine the antecedent conditions that contribute to post-secondary education (PSE) completion for students with disabilities, taking into account institutional experiences associated with social integration. A prospective longitudinal design was used to analyze data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2. The study sample consisted of youth who were currently enrolled in vocational schools, two-year community colleges, and four-year universities six years after high school exit. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationships between pre-entry variables and PSE completion. To test the hypothesis of mediation, the causal step approach (Baron & Kenny, 1986) was used. Findings indicated that self-advocacy, participation in work-study or paid employment, participation in extra-curricular activities, and development of vocational skills as a primary transition goal significantly predicted PSE completion. Students who participated in work-study or paid employment reported higher levels of PSE completion. Students who provided input in IEP meetings were less likely to report completing PSE compared to peers who took leadership roles in IEP meetings. Both participating in extra-curricular activities and developing vocational skills as a primary transition goal were negatively associated with PSE completion. The mediation analysis revealed that it is unlikely that institutional experiences examined in this study mediate the relationships between pre-entry variables and PSE completion. Findings further showed that many of the factors considered in the student integration model (Tinto, 1975, 1987, 1993) are positively related to PSE completion for students with disabilities.

The attempts made under the Endowed Schools Act of 1869 to reorganise the grammar schools of England and Wales along lines suggested by the Taunton Commission have attracted comparatively little notice. Yet they represent not only a serious endeavour, many years before 1902, to construct the basis of a secondary school system, but a very important government lead in the ratter of girls1 education. The Commissioners appointed to administer the Act were strongly committed to the principles behind it and vigorously wielded their considerable powers, including those under Section 12 which required provision to be made for girls out of endowments wherever possible. Though the application of Section 12 was often hindered by shortage of money, competing claims and local reluctance to diminish the resources available to boys, in total more than a quarter of the schools launched by the Endowed Schools Commissioners were girls' schools. In 1874 the Endowed Schools Commission, which had been a child of the Liberal government, was disbanded by the Conservatives and its powers transferred to the Charity Commission which exercised them until 1903. This transfer to a body of administrators with a narrower, quasi-judicial tradition and no particular commitment to the girls' cause, was deplored at the time by the women's movement; as it proved, rightly, for the Charity Commissioners did less well with Section 12 and their entire provision of girls' schools was only 15% of their total. There are certainly signs, towards the end of the century, that initiative in this particular sphere, as in secondary education generally, was already passing to the County Councils? In fact, the problem of providing for girls revealed in an acute form the wider problem of trying to base a secondary school system on endowments.

<p> Although school dropout rate remains a significant social and economic concern to our nation and has generated considerable research, little attention by scholars has examined the phenomena of re-engagement in effective school context and its developmental influences on at-risk students expectancy for success and task-value towards graduation. Given the multifaceted interactions of school context and the complex developmental needs of at-risk students, there were dual purposes for this three-phase, two-method qualitative study that addressed the literature concerns.</p><p> The first purpose was to explore and identify policies, programs, and practices perceived as being most effective in re-engaging at-risk students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively, at ten Model Continuation High Schools in California. Phases one and two collected data on the Model Continuation High Schools (MCHS) to address this purpose.</p><p> In phase one, an inductive document review of the ten MCHS applications including four statement letters was conducted and results identified eleven policies, ten programs, and eleven practices that were effective in re-engaging at-risk students behaviorally, emotionally, and cognitively. In phase two, the phenomenological ten-step analysis of semi-structured administrator interviews revealed eight re-engaging implementation strategies perceived to be effective with at-risk students.</p><p> The second purpose was to build upon Eccles' Expectancy-Value Theoretical Framework by gaining insight on effective school context that supported at-risk students' developmentally appropriate expectancy for success and task-value beliefs towards graduation. Phase three conducted a deductive content analysis of eight theoretical based components on the combine data collected in phases one and two to address this second purpose. Results revealed that principles of Eccles&rsquo; Expectancy-Value Model were evident in all identified policies, programs, and practices of the ten MCHS.</p><p> Model Continuation High Schools are exemplary sites with effective school context that have much to share with other continuation high schools looking for successful re-engaging approaches for at-risk students. The research provided results suggesting that MCHS had significant policies, programs, practices and implementation strategies that transform disengaged at-risk students into graduates by developing students' expectancy for success belief and task-value belief towards graduation. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed.</p>

<p> This mixed method study examined the effectiveness of a school-based program that has been integrating trauma-informed education and art therapy for three decades to treat adolescents who have experienced complex trauma, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and toxic stress. To date, no clinical-effectiveness outcomes research or systematic program evaluation had been conducted at Northern California School (pseudonym). This research included 15 former student participants who attended the program over the past 15 years, as well as 28 current and former staff employed over the past 30 years. Research methods include tenets of effectiveness studies, program evaluation, and narrative analysis. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 195 archival clinical files, questionnaires distributed to former students and staff, and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The results provide demographic characteristics of each sample; for former student participants, this includes ACE scores describing the prevalence of the 10 major types of childhood trauma, and GSE scores describing present-day level of functioning. Results also provide characteristics of treatment, significant correlates of graduating from the program with a high school diploma, and ratings of process and outcome variables as well as various treatment modalities by former students and staff participants. Dialogical narrative analysis was utilized to analyze qualitative data gathered during the in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and the stories of three former students, four art therapists, and the voice of the researcher are presented in the form of short stories to provide an overview of the experience of art therapy in the voices of former students and staff. This research contributes evidence that art therapy is an impactful and effective component of treatment for adolescents with complex trauma and higher ACE scores, and may create lifelong patterns for these individuals of seeking therapeutic support in times of distress.</p>

No description available.

<p> This study is an in-depth look at the role of grades and standardized test scores in predicting future student success in the classroom, focusing on the transition from middle school to high school. It seeks to identify how practicing high school administrators can utilize these two sets of predictor data in the decision of placing students into the high school curriculum at the freshman level. A review of the literature examines research on grades to students, standardized testing practices, success at the freshman level of high school, and the connection between high school and college level placement. </p><p> Middle school grades in a student&rsquo;s core subject area classes (math, English, science and social science) were contrasted with standardized MAP test scores administered in the eighth grade year in their ability to predict ninth grade core subject area classroom performance, in order to identify which is a better predictor of future performance. </p><p> The study takes place in a high school district in Illinois. It looks specifically at the district&rsquo;s Class of 2018 and its 223 students. In the final analysis, the study found a positive correlational relationship between both middle school grades and standardized test scores and ninth grade grades. Further analysis found that, in every research question studied, middle school grades proved to be the stronger predictor of ninth grade grades. In addition, this study found middle school grades to be far stronger of a predictor suggesting that the primary determinate of placement decisions for the ninth grade can be found in the classroom track record of incoming ninth graders and not standardized test scores.</p>

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01