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To support all students, including students with disabilities, many schools have adopted a positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) framework. Although rigorous research documents the beneficial effects of Tier 1 PBIS for all students and emerging research extends these findings to students with disabilities, there has not been a national U.S. study focused on PBIS and discipline outcomes for students with disabilities. In this exploratory study, we combine existing national data sets to explore the relationship between (a) known PBIS exposure (i.e., being in the PBIS data set) and fidelity (i.e., meeting the criterion on an established fidelity measure of Tier 1 PBIS) and (b) exclusionary discipline for students with disabilities. Using two-part path analysis, we document that PBIS may be associated with decreased use of suspension; however, findings are less consistent for other discipline outcomes. This study highlights the critical need for more accurate data on discipline outcomes and further research on effective intervention.

A budding area of research is devoted to studying evaluator curriculum, yet to date, it has focused exclusively on describing the content and emphasis of topics or competencies in university-based programs. This study aims to expand the foci of research efforts and investigates the extent to which evaluators agree on what competencies should guide the development and implementation of evaluator education. This study used the Delphi method with evaluators (n = 11) and included three rounds of online surveys and follow-up interviews between rounds. This article discusses on which competencies evaluators were able to reach consensus. Where consensus was not found, possible reasons are offered. Where consensus was found, the necessity of each competency at both the master's and doctoral levels is described. Findings are situated in ongoing debates about what is unique about what novice evaluators need to know and be able to do and the purpose of evaluator education.

The relationship between PBIS implementation fidelity and reductions in student office discipline referrals (ODR) has been relatively well-established in the literature; however, results related to other student outcomes such as suspensions, attendance, and academic performance are not well explored especially at the high school level. The purpose of this study was to examine the relations between PBIS implementation fidelity and student-level behavior (ODR, suspension), attendance (days absent, tardies), and academic (GPA) outcomes in a large sample of 12,127 students from 15 high schools implementing PBIS in a natural context without direct research support. Our findings suggest high schools implementing PBIS with fidelity may see improvements in student outcomes beyond reductions in ODRs. After controlling for student and school demographic variables, schools which were implementing with higher fidelity in this sample had fewer absences, unexcused tardies, ODRs, and suspensions. This study extends the current literature by exploring typical measures of academic achievement (i.e., GPA) rather than focusing upon only standardized assessments and by examining student-level rather than school-level aggregate outcomes. Notably, results from the current study focus entirely on high school settings and demonstrate desired changes in student-level outcomes in a large sample.

DNMT3A encodes an enzyme that carries out de novo DNA methylation, which is essential for the acquisition of cellular identity and specialized functions during cellular differentiation. DNMT3A is the most frequently mutated gene in age-related clonal hematopoiesis. As such, mature immune cells harboring DNMT3A mutations can be readily detected in elderly persons. Most DNMT3A mutations associated with clonal hematopoiesis are heterozygous and predicted to cause loss of function, indicating that haploinsufficiency is the predominant pathogenic mechanism. Yet, the impact of DNMT3A haploinsufficiency on the function of mature immune cells is poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that DNMT3A haploinsufficiency impairs the gain of DNA methylation at decommissioned enhancers, while simultaneously and unexpectedly impairing DNA demethylation of newly activated enhancers in mature human myeloid cells. The DNA methylation defects alter the activity of affected enhancers, leading to abnormal gene expression and impaired immune response. These findings provide insights into the mechanism of immune dysfunction associated with clonal hematopoiesis and acquired DNMT3A mutations.

Efforts to improve the achievement gap between low-income children and their more affluent peers has led to the development of classroom interventions and curricula to increase executive functioning (EF) and social-emotional skills (SE), thought to be foundational for learning. The Second Step Early Learning (SSEL) curriculum is a commercially available curriculum designed to improve school readiness by building EF and SE skills. However, although widely used, it has not been widely studied. Modeling SSEL's underlying theory of change, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to longitudinally examine the effects of the curriculum on low-income preschool children's kindergarten school readiness through the hypothesized mediating role of EF and SE skills in improving pre-academic skills and task behavior in preschool. In a cluster randomized trial, 972 children attending 63 preschool classrooms within 13 low-income Head Start or community preschools were individually tested at the beginning (T1) and end of preschool (T2, n = 770) and followed into kindergarten (T3, n = 526). Children's average age at T1 was 53 months, with 51% male, 42% Anglo-American, 26% African-American, and 40% Hispanic-American. Children's executive functioning, social skills, pre-literacy/language, and pre-math skills were assessed by trained child assessors blind to study conditions at T1 and T2. Assessors also rated children's task behavior in the testing situation at T1 and T2. School records of children's kindergarten screening scores were obtained on 345 children at T3. It was expected that SSEL would improve children's SE and EF skills, and that these skills would lead to better preschool academic skills and on-task behavior, which in turn would result in better kindergarten readiness. We found no direct effects of SSEL on either pre-academic or on-task behavior outcomes in preschool, or on later kindergarten readiness. However, SSEL significantly increased EF, and as expected by SSEL's theory of change, growth in EF predicted gains in both pre-academics (pre-math and pre-literacy/language skills), and on-task behavior in preschool. End-of-year pre-academic skills and on task behavior in turn predicted better kindergarten readiness. Further, SE (although not impacted by SSEL) had direct and indirect effects on kindergarten readiness. Thus, overall, our findings largely support SSEL's theory of change, particularly in relation to EF.

Effective classroom management is critical for student and teacher success. Because teachers receive limited preservice preparation and in-service support in classroom management, educational leaders (e.g., school psychologists, behavior coaches, mentor teachers, and administrators) need efficient and effective tools to identify teachers' strengths and needs and to guide professional development. Current approaches to assess teachers' classroom management are either (a) simple and efficient, but have unknown psychometric properties, or (b) psychometrically sound, but resource intensive. Thus, a Classroom Management Observation Tool (CMOT) that is simple, efficient, and has promising psychometric properties would fill a critical need in the field. This article describes the initial development and validation of the CMOT--a four-item rating of teachers' active supervision, opportunities to respond, specific praise, and positive to corrective ratio--and presents promising evidence of content validity, factor structure, interrater reliability, construct validity, and generalizability. Further research is needed to develop this tool for screening, progress monitoring, and other assessment purposes.

Teacher rating scales (TRS) often play a part in service eligibility decisions for gifted services. Although schools regularly use TRS to identify gifted students either as part of an informal nomination process or through behavioral rating scales, there is little research documenting the between-teacher variance in teacher ratings and the consequences of such rater dependence. To evaluate the possible benefits or disadvantages of using TRS as part of a gifted identification process, we examined the student-, teacher-, and school-level variance in TRS, controlling for student ability and achievement to determine the unique information, consistency, and potential bias in TRS. Between 10% and 25% of a students' TRS score can be attributed to the teacher doing the rating, and between-teacher standard deviations represent an effect size of one-third to one-half standard deviation. Our results suggest that TRS are not easily comparable across teachers, making it impossible to set a cut score for admission into a program (or for further screening) that functions equitably across teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compared five common multilevel software packages via Monte Carlo simulation: HLM 7, M"plus" 7.4, R (lme4 V1.1-12), Stata 14.1, and SAS 9.4 to determine how the programs differ in estimation accuracy and speed, as well as convergence, when modeling multiple randomly varying slopes of different magnitudes. Simulated data included population variance estimates, which were zero or near zero for two of the five random slopes. Generally, when yielding admissible solutions, all five software packages produced comparable and reasonably unbiased parameter estimates. However, noticeable differences among the five packages arose in terms of speed, convergence rates, and the production of standard errors for random effects, especially when the variances of these effects were zero in the population. The results of this study suggest that applied researchers should carefully consider which random effects they wish to include in their models. In addition, nonconvergence rates vary across packages, and models that fail to converge in one package may converge in another.

The details of deoxidation during the spray process and the changes following air annealing were investigated by microstructural and electrical characterizations of air plasma sprayed Ti[O.sub.2] coatings. The coatings were found to behave as an n-type semiconductor indicating the presence of oxygen vacancies and impedance spectroscopy results suggest that deoxidation is indeed inhomogeneous.

The authors discuss criminal and civil cases brought against New York Stock Exchange floor brokers under Securities Exchange Act of 1934's section 11(a), in which the brokers were charged with conspiracy to "trade into" customer orders and thus increase prices.

A new quantitative study investigates the Hall effect in amorphous TbxCo1-x thin films.