Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of North Texas, May, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Dec., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Public education in the United States is currently enveloped in an era of intense accountability. At the national level the No Child Left Behind Act, demands accountability in any district or school receiving federal funds One of the goals of the No Child Left Behind legislation had its roots in the Texas education accountability statute of 1999, when former governor George W. Bush signed into law a mandate that became known as the Student Success Initiative. That law required students in the 3rd grade to pass the state reading assessment in order to be promoted to the 4th grade, beginning in the year 2003. The same group of students would be required to pass their 5th and 8th grade reading and math exams to be promoted to the next grade level. The initiative continued for all students. In opposition to the those policies, the body of research regarding grade-level retention concludes that the practice of grade retention is ineffective in increasingstudent achievement (Jimerson, 2001, Harness, 1984, McCoy, 1999). This study examined the Student Success Initiative in Texas. The goal was to determine whether retention in 3rd, 5th, or 8th grade made a signification difference in subsequent TAKS scores in comparison with students who were placed in the next grade level by the official Grade Placement Committee. Data was analyzed from three large urban school districts in Texas. Results were consistent across the three school districts. Students who were retained in third grade performed better the subsequent year in third grade, but those successes did not continue consistently through the 5th and 8th grade years. Students retained in 5th grade for math performed poorly on subsequent tests, as did students retained in the 8th grade for reading or math. However, the group of students that was retained in 5th grade due to failure of the TAKS Reading test exhibited success in the subsequent year as well as the 8th grade year. Overall, TAKS students who were retained did not perform better than students who were placed in the next grade level as they progressed through 8th grade. / text

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of Scholastic, Incorporated's ReadAbout software system on student achievement in the subject of reading. The study assessed the relationship between the amount of time third and fourth grade students spent utilizing the program and their scale scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) reading test, as reported in student records of third and fourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas. Additionally, the study attempted to determine possible differences among students for the variables of gender, primary language of learning, and socio-economic status, as reported in student records of third and fourth graders at Comal Independent School District, Texas. For the purpose of this study, school and student performance analysis included only the nine elementary schools in the Comal Independent School District that served third and fourth grade students during the 2007-2008 school year. The student population under study consisted of a total of 585 third graders and 792 fourth graders (1377 total students). The research findings of this study include the following: 1. There was a statistically significant relationship between the amount of time that both third grade and fourth grade students spent using the ReadAbout software system and their performance on the third and fourth grade TAKS reading tests. 2. No statistically significant relationships were determined for gender or socioeconomic status when the amount of time individuals in each subpopulation spent using ReadAbout and the students' TAKS reading test scale scores were compared. However, in the analysis for primary language of learning, a small group of Spanish-speaking students who used ReadAbout for more than 16.5 hours prior to taking the test outperformed their English-speaking peers in the same usage category, and this difference did prove to be statistically significant.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-04, page: 1954. Adviser: Sally W. Vernon. Includes bibliographical references.

Not available / text

The Student Success Initiative (SSI) established, in 1999, various promotional gates for students to pass the state-mandated high-stakes assessment test known as the Texas Assessment of Knowledge & Skills (TAKS), administered in the areas of reading for third graders and of reading and math for fifth graders. Largely perceived as antisocial promotion legislation, outcomes of the SSI implementation did not seem to coincide with their original intentions. To ascertain the veracity of this claim, interviews were scheduled with a variety of local level stakeholders serving as decision-making participants in a structure known as the grade placement committee. Grade placement committee members address student promotion and retention decisions when students do not meet the passing standards for the TAKS tests. Because the SSI is still recent in its implementation, to date there is not a wide body of research examining the stakeholder perceptions of the SSI and of their role in the decision-making process for student retention and promotion. To this end, several interviews were conducted with teachers, with parents, and with campus or district-level administrators. The interviews served to gauge the stakeholder perceptions regarding their role in the grade placement committee itself as decision-makers and also their perceptions or their experiences regarding how often or likely students are to be promoted or to be retained in the context of the grade placement committee meetings. The participants also spoke about their views regarding the effectiveness of the SSI and the outcomes of its implementation. The research participants spoke to their personal experiences with student retention and promotion. The stakeholders' views range from the perception that the SSI puts students at risk of failure, actually causing students to be promoted more often to the opinion that the SSI does hold both the teacher and the parents more accountable for student success. Several broad themes emerged from the data. The themes of perceived power, underlying or unwritten agendas and a call for change due to dissatisfaction with the current system were evident upon the examination of the data.