Teachers in a New Jersey suburban high school noticed an increase in students' stress and anxiety associated with high-stakes testing, and they were struggling to find strategies and interventions to help. The purpose of this study was to investigate high school English and mathematics teachers' current knowledge, experiences, and perceptions about students' preparation and responses to high-stakes testing and to explore teachers' perceptions about teaching strategies they needed to reduce student test anxiety. Liebert and Morris's bidimensional components of anxiety, emotionality, and worry form the conceptual framework that guided this study. The research questions focused on teachers' perceptions about students' high-stakes testing readiness, students' testing behaviors, and teachers' training needs. A case study design was used to capture the insights of 12 high school English and math teachers through semistructured interviews and a focus group interview; a purposeful sampling process was used to select the participants. Emergent themes were identified through open coding, and the findings were developed and checked for trustworthiness through member checking, rich descriptions, and researcher reflexivity. The findings revealed that teachers recognize that students react in different ways to testing, that students who are prepared for the tests demonstrate greater confidence and less anxiety, and that teachers want more professional development specific to reducing students' anxiety and stress. A professional development project was created to provide teachers with strategies and approaches to prepare students for high-stress testing situations. This study has implications for positive social change by creating a structure to provide teachers with strategies for managing students' test anxiety.

High-stakes teacher evaluations (HSTEs) in public education influence millions of students and teachers across the U.S. Currently, there is a dearth of published quantitative research that shows the relation of HSTEs to teacher job satisfaction. The purpose of this quasiexperimental quantitative study was to determine if implementation of HSTEs in state of Hawaiʻi as part of the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top program initiative was related to teacher job satisfaction in public schools over time. A repeated measures analyses was conducted using archived teacher job satisfaction data from over 200 public schools in Hawaiʻi from 2009 to 2014, including data collected from 2 years before until 2 years after implementation of HSTEs. The theoretical framework used for the study was grounded in Herzberg's 2-factor theory of motivation. It was hypothesized that the implementation of HSTEs may have affected extrinsic hygiene factors such as wages, supervisory practices, and organizational policy relative to intrinsic motivational factors such as work achievement, recognition, and personal growth of teachers working in schools implementing the federal initiative. The most significant study finding was that both overall satisfaction and satisfaction with student achievement increased during the 2011-2012 implementation year and then fell below pre-implementation levels in the 2 years subsequent to implementation of HSTEs. This finding is discussed in the context of an increase in pay for public school teachers in Hawai'i during the post-implementation period. The results of this research may promote positive social change by highlighting the need for a focus on potential unintended consequences (i.e., possible negative effects on teacher job satisfaction) of federal education policies associated with HSTE systems.

Twenty percent of the 2013-2014 sophomore class at a Washington high school was failing high-stakes tests, making these students ineligible to graduate. In an attempt to help students identify their academic proficiency with respect to the Common Core Curricular Standards 9 months before the high-stakes exam, the high school recently introduced the adaptive diagnostic software i-Ready. Cognitive learning theories comprised the framework for this study, which posit that learning is dependent on previous knowledge and central to measuring performance levels. The purpose of this quantitative correlational project study was to examine whether 10th grade students' achievement on i-Ready math scores (N = 220) could predict the subsequent high-stakes mathematics scores on the End of Course Exam while controlling for gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The i-Ready emerged as a statistically significant predictor of the End of Course Exam scores with β = .64 (p < .001), explaining R2 = .43 of the criterion variance. Gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status had no significant moderating influence. The project deliverable as a result of this study was a position paper advising the use of the i-Ready as a predictor for the End of Course Exam at the high school under study. The implications for positive social change include allowing educators to use the i-Ready as an early warning system for students in danger of failing high-stakes exams. This study may help identify students at risk of not graduating who could benefit from instructional support.

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) brought high-stakes testing to the forefront of American public education. With its call for teachers and schools to be accountable for academic performance, NCLB has focused the spotlight on yearly progress, as measured by students' test scores. Issues associated with this charge include the questionable reliability of tests, the variation evident in state standards, and the consequences an emphasis on high-stakes testing may have on teaching and learning in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to investigate the consequences of high-stakes testing on teaching and learning in public elementary schools in Utah from the vantage point of school principals. Although policymakers assume a direct correlation between increased test scores and academic achievement, this study went beyond test scores. Analysis of semi-structured interviews with 12 principals, selected through purposive sampling from both Title 1 and non-Title 1 schools, revealed both positive and negative themes. Principals appreciated the focus and collaboration that NCLB testing encourages among teachers, but they disliked the impact of poor test scores on faculty morale. Unlike respondents in previous studies, principals did not feel that NCLB diminished creativity in the classroom; they did worry, however, about the validity of scores as a measure of student learning, particularly in the case of a one-time, year-end test.

Teachers work within a context of competing stories, including pressures regarding English language learners (ELLs), a deficit view of teachers, and high-stakes testing and accountability, all of which impact teachers' emotions. Within this context, teachers prioritize what is most important to them. This self-study using narrative inquiry methods lays the author's stories of teaching alongside those of two other teachers of ELLs. The author conducted a series of interviews with the participants, analyzed the interviews for themes and tensions, negotiated meaning with participants, and created interim texts to represent the participants' priorities in teaching ELLs. Three teachers' priorities, as indicated by their stories of teaching, are relationships with students, and helping students continue to progress. Implications include the importance of teachers' understanding of their own priorities, which helps alleviate some of the pressure that teachers are under, positively impacting students as well. Recommended research includes future research on teachers' priorities regarding their ELL students, and further self-studies with narrative inquiry methods.

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This study sought to uncover how the annual Florida School Report Card influences secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers’ self-efficacy and perceptions of student writing. The study’s findings suggested that ELA teachers’ self-efficacy may be indirectly influenced by the School Report Card. The participants in this study suggested that they do not feel totally capable of applying the information learned from the School Report Card to their own classrooms. The teachers who participated in the study also reported that they have low outcome expectations when interacting with the School Report Card. They do not believe that their actions can influence the School Report Card, and suggested that they see the school grade as a moving target with changing rules they may not be able to keep up with. The School Report Card was not suggested to directly impact the participants’ perceptions of student writing. Instead, the data suggested that a variety of internal and external factors influence the way teachers perceive their students’ writing quality. Finally, most of the participants suggested that they view the school grade as an unfair measure of achievement, and a tool that does not take into account the quality of the learning in the school and represents the school poorly. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was used to situate these findings and gain a better understanding of how the School Report Card functions as a tool for teachers and administrators.

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