Background: In the last decade, the effects of teachers on student performance (typically manifested as state-wide standardized tests) have been re-examined using statistical models that are known as value-added models. These statistical models aim to compute the unique contribution of the teachers in promoting student achievement gains from grade…

Background/Context: The effects of class size on student achievement have gained considerable attention in education research and policy, especially over the last 30 years. Perhaps the best evidence about the effects of class size thus far has been produced from analyses of Project STAR data, a large-scale experiment where students and teachers…

Background: Increasingly, teachers and other educators are expected to leverage data in making educational decisions. Effective data use is difficult, if not impossible, without computer data systems. Nonetheless, these systems may be underused or even rejected by teachers. One potential explanation for such troubles may relate to how teachers…

Background/Context: Educational researchers and policymakers have often lamented the failure of teachers to implement what they consider to be technically sound assessment procedures. In recent years, the belief that teachers are unwilling or unable to implement appropriate assessment procedures has contributed to the rapid expansion of high…

Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching. Purpose/Objective: Good, after…

Background: There has been rapid growth in value-added assessment of teachers to meet the widely supported policy goal of identifying the most effective and the most ineffective teachers in a school system. The former group is to be rewarded while the latter group is to be helped or fired for their poor performance. But, value-added approaches to…

Background/Context: The stakes are getting higher for teachers daily as more and more states adopt hiring, firing, and tenure-granting policies based on teacher evaluations. Even more concerning is the limited discussion about whether or not high-stakes teacher evaluation can meet the intended outcome of improved student achievement, and at what…

Background: Collective learning in teacher education has primarily focused on learning from problematic practices/approaches, depriving preservice teachers of learning opportunities embedded in professional successes. Purpose: The goal of the present study was to explore the value of systematic learning from success as a complementary reflective…

Background/Context: Relying largely on high school measures of home language use, the literature examining immigrant incorporation in schools provides contradictory evidence of home language effects on educational outcomes. More recent research has demonstrated that home language use is dynamic and thus it is important to examine the implications…

Background: The ability to think analogically is central to the process of learning and understanding reality and there is a broad consensus among researchers that we can improve this ability. Immigrants who have emigrated from developing to developed countries tend to experience tremendous challenges in their early years as immigrants. Their…

Background/Context: Under supplemental educational services ("supplemental services"), a parental choice provision of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools that have not made adequate yearly progress in increasing student achievement are required to offer low-income families free, afterschool tutoring. Existing research shows low…

Background/Context: Tropes of dis/ability in the movies and master-narratives of Black males in education and society are typically treated in isolation. Furthermore, education research on Hollywood movies has typically focused on portrayals of schools, principals, and teachers even though education professionals are exposed to a broader range of…

Background/Context: The current research on teacher knowledge and teacher accountability falls short on information about what teacher knowledge base could guide preparation and accountability of the mainstream teachers for meeting the academic needs of ELLs. Most recently, research on specialized knowledge for teaching has offered ways to…

Background/Context: Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners undoubtedly concur that missing school deteriorates student outcomes. And yet, in evaluating the deleterious effects of missing in-school time, empirical research has almost exclusively focused on absences, and the scant amount of empirical literature on tardiness has focused on…

Context: The documentary film about U.S. education reform, "Waiting for 'Superman'," was met with acclaim and controversy when released to theaters in 2010, and again when launching its grassroots "host a screening" campaign in 2011. The campaign ran concurrent with 2011 state legislative sessions, during which…