With the advent of No Child Left Behind legislation in 2002 and its mandates for annual yearly progress for all students, many districts and schools in Texas have had difficulty elevating African American and Hispanic students’ scores. The current study examined these students’ achievement on the annual Texas high-stakes measure as a function of a numerical construct that aligns the race/ethnicity of students when the teacher race is White. Earlier studies have shown that racial/ethnic compatibility between students and teachers improves student achievement in the primary grades. The study, which was set in 10 north Texas school districts and 30 high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools, examined African American and Hispanic students’ achievement on the Texas state assessments in reading and mathematics over a 10-year period. District performance data came from 4,664,192 African American, Hispanic, and White students and 222, 834 White teachers. Campus level data encompassed 188,839 10th graders, 93,573 eighth graders, and 40,083 fourth graders, and 20,471 White teachers. Analysis revealed that, as the ratios of African American and Hispanic students to White teachers increased, the percentages of these two student groups passing the Texas assessments decreased. These patterns differed for White students whose passing percentages increased as these students’ numbers increased relative to White teachers in all settings except in elementary schools. These preliminary findings suggested that racial alignment at the high school and middle school levels might elevate African American and Hispanic achievement. Implications may lead to shifting focus on teacher quality and class size as the primary determinants of student achievement. Findings need validation with further study using larger data sets and sequential grade levels. If validated through further studies involving larger samples, contiguous grade levels, and more sophisticated statistical analysis, this study’s findings may have implications for teacher education curriculum, recruitment of minority teacher candidates, workforce retention, and state policy on class size limits.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-22T21:55:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Micherlangela Barroso Rocha.pdf: 532215 bytes, checksum: f8d915a36f4665d341a9a03fd313552b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-09-14 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The status in which does occur the teaching-learning process must be analyzed both in pedagogical and psychological aspects in order to comprehend the causes associated to the implied difficulties in this process which must be considered when focusing researches and assessment of social interactions happening into classroom. The research also addresses the thematic of social interactions taking place in the higher education that is understood in this study as the interaction between teachers and students in the context of undergraduate classrooms in a course of pedagogy of a private university located in the municipality of Manaus, State of Amazonas, Brazil. As for decipher the genesis of the learning process in a formal setting it is necessary to interpret the interactive, communicative and metacommunicative processes occurring at different times and spaces where the subjects are found. It is intended then, to make an analysis in relation to the quality of social interactions drawn in the context of the higher education in Manaus. For such a task, the present study uses a focal group technique in order to achieve the proposed objectives. Based on Vygotsky socio-historical approach, this study examines how the interactive process act as mobilizers of the construction of knowledge based on convergent as well as divergent interactions, especially in talks related to the objectives and progress of educational activities. It is a unique problem, due to the scarcity of such studies, particularly in Brazil, where in general, educational research is focused on the elementary school which causes concern to some academics that in their majority have technician skills, lacking, consequently, great knowledge on the matter of the human interactions taking place inside classroom. / As circunstâncias em que se dá o processo ensino-aprendizagem devem ser analisadas, tanto em seu aspecto pedagógico, quanto psicológico, a fim de que se possam compreender as causas concernentes às dificuldades que estão implícitas nesse processo e que devem ser consideradas quando se trata de pesquisar ou avaliar as interações sociais que acontecem em sala de aula. A pesquisa aborda a temática das interações sociais que acontecem, também, no Ensino Superior, entendido, neste estudo, como a interação que ocorre entre docentes e discentes no contexto de salas de aulas do curso de graduação em Pedagogia de uma determinada universidade privada localizada no município de Manaus/AM. Para decifrar a gênese dos processos de aprendizagem em um ambiente formal é necessário decifrar os processos interativos, comunicativos e metacomunicativos, que ocorrem nos diferentes momentos e espaços em que os sujeitos se encontram. Pretende-se, portanto, fazer uma análise acerca da qualidade das interações sociais envolvidas no contexto da sala de aula do ensino universitário em Manaus. Para tal tarefa, o presente estudo utiliza a técnica do grupo focal a fim de atingir os objetivos propostos. Com base na abordagem sócio-histórica de Vygotsky, o estudo analisa como os processos interativos atuam enquanto mobilizadores da construção do conhecimento ao longo de convergências e divergências nas interações, especialmente nas negociações quanto aos objetivos e desenvolvimento de atividades pedagógicas. Considera-se um problema original, tendo em vista a escassez de estudos dessa natureza, sobretudo no Brasil, onde, em geral, as pesquisas educacionais são voltadas para as séries iniciais, o que causa certa inquietação por parte dos professores universitários, que, em sua maioria, têm formações tecnicistas, faltando-lhes, portanto, maior compreensão a respeito das interações humanas que ocorrem em sala de aula.

The primary focus of the current study was to determine if there is a relationship between size of high school and advanced academic achievement as measured by the Virginia Index of Performance while statistically controlling for multiple combinations of the following variables; socioeconomic status, urbanicity of school, per-pupil expenditure, and student-teacher ratio. The combinations of variables used in the current study were determined by knowledge gained in the review of the literature. Level of award on the Virginia Index of Performance, school enrollment, percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch prices, per-pupil expenditures, student-teacher ratios, and school locale were collected for all high schools in Virginia with 9th-12th grade configurations for school years 2006-07 through 2008-09. A sequential multiple regression analysis was conducted using level of Virginia Index of Performance award earned as the dependent variable and school size as the primary predictor variable while statistically controlling for per-pupil expenditure, student-teacher ratio, socioeconomic status, and urbanicity in different combinations. The analyses performed on the collected data revealed that school size, when other variables were accounted for, was not a significant predictor of performance on the Virginia Index of Performance incentive program. When the analyses were performed for Research Question 2, however, socioeconomic status was found to be a significant predictor of performance on the Virginia Index of Performance incentive program. Multiple limitations should be noted when interpreting the results of the analyses. The main limitations to the current study were a restricted population of schools due to confines placed on grade configurations of schools included in the study and the initial criteria of making Adequate Yearly Progress for two consecutive years in order to be eligible to receive an award in the Virginia Index of Performance program. The combination of these restrictions resulted in a large number of schools being excluded from the current study. Due to the range restrictions placed on the studied population, the relationship between size of school and advanced student achievement could be stronger than reported. Future research should include a less restricted population of schools and other measures of advanced student achievement. / Ed. D.