The number of students that live in families where a language other than English is spoken has risen relative to the English-only households in the United States over the last 25 years. These students face the dual challenge of mastering English while acquiring academic skills and knowledge. The education of these students has been shaped by…

One of the major series of reviews in elementary and secondary education is the Best Evidence Encyclopedia, or the BEE. Up to now, findings for systematic reviews have largely been restricted to the reviews themselves, with few cases in which lessons learned across many reviews using similar methods can be synthesized. The completion of the Best…

Recent policy has charged schools and districts with maintaining highly qualified teachers and differentiating among teachers in terms of their effectiveness (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). This emphasis has driven the development and implementation of teacher quality measures which are increasingly being used to evaluate teachers with…

In randomized control trials, such as the one the authors conducted in Alabama, moderators are potentially an important source of variation in treatment effects. Whether moderators used in the RCT's analysis are pre-existing characteristics of students, their teachers, or the school or other organizational context, they can point toward…

The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to determine the efficacy of the Leveled Literacy Intervention program (LLI) in increasing reading achievement for K-2 students and (2) to examine LLI program implementation fidelity. This study evaluated LLI in two U.S. school districts and used a mixed-method design to address the following key research…

This meta-analysis is designed to build on the existing knowledge base by examining vocabulary interventions specifically for factors associated with child outcomes for at-risk children. Specifically, the authors addressed the following questions: (1) To what extent are vocabulary interventions an effective method for at-risk children prior to…

Prior reviews of evidence for the impact of formative assessment on student achievement suggest widely different estimates of formative assessment's effectiveness, ranging from 0.40 and 0.70 standard deviations in one review. The purpose of this study is to describe variability in the effectiveness of formative assessment for promoting student…

This research investigated the effects of two contrasting pre-k curricula, relative to practice as usual, on subsequent academic achievement. One curriculum had a strong literacy focus, the other was a less didactic "developmentally appropriate" curriculum that allowed children to have more influence on classroom activities. The purpose…

Although some literacy researchers consider grouping students for reading instruction to be a proven educational practice, the support for this belief is lacking from a research synthesis perspective. With this idea in mind, Slavin comments in the middle of his review on the effects of grouping: "there is not enough research on within-class…

Given the vital importance of using a scientific approach for curriculum development, the authors employed a design experiment methodology (Brown, 1992; Shavelson et al., 2003) to develop and evaluate, FUSION, a first grade mathematics intervention intended for students with or at-risk for mathematics disabilities. FUSION, funded through IES…

Accurate indicators of educational effectiveness are needed to advance national policy goals of raising student achievement and closing social/cultural based achievement gaps. If constructed and used appropriately, such indicators for both program evaluation and the evaluation of teacher and school performance could have a transformative effect on…