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The literacy design collaborative (LDC) was created to support teachers in implementing college and career readiness standards. Teachers work collaboratively with coaches to further develop their expertise and design standards-driven, literacy-rich writing assignments within their existing curriculum across content areas. The current paper reports on early student academic outcome results from a multi-year mixed methods study of the implementation and effect of LDC using a quasi-experimental design, as implemented in one large urban school district. We found LDC had statistically significant effects on Cohort 2 middle school students’ English language arts (ELA) performance, an effect size of (d = 0.15) for students receiving LDC instruction in the three core content areas LDC focuses on: ELA, science, and social studies/history.

Every since the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) in the United States, achievement gains resulting from afterschool participation have been of particular interest. However, findings have been inconsistent. The challenge for researchers is partly due to the wide variation of program goals, difficulty in obtaining valid control groups, difficulty in obtaining clean records of data, the high transience rates of the students, and in particular, the failure to ifferentiate among the dosage students receive and the inherent potential of selection bias in the afterschool population. This study draw on a large dataset and allows for the analysis of effects over the course of several years. Using LA's BEST afterschool program as an example, this study employed advanced methodology to reduce selection bias in examining the relations between afterschool program participation and academic achievement. Keywords: afterschool program, participation, academic achievement, selection bias, LA's BEST ----- Bibliography: Huang, Denise/Leon, Seth/La Torre, Deborah: Using Entropy Balancing to Reduce the Effects of Selection Bias in Afterschool Studies: An Example in Studying the Relationship between Intensity of Afterschool Program Participation and Academic Achievement, IJREE, Vol. 5, Issue 1-2017, pp. 5-25. https://doi.org/10.3224/ijree.v5i1.01

Cognitive operations are supported by dynamically reconfiguring neural systems that integrate processing components widely distributed throughout the brain. The inter-neuronal connections that constitute these systems are powerfully shaped by environmental input. We evaluated the ability of computer-presented brain training games done in school to harness this neuroplastic potential and improve learning in an overall study sample of 583 second-grade children. Doing a 5-minute brain-training game immediately before math or reading curricular content games increased performance on the curricular content games. Doing three 20-minute brain training sessions per week for four months increased gains on school-administered math and reading achievement tests compared to control classes tested at the same times without intervening brain training. These results provide evidence of cognitive priming with immediate effects on learning, and longer-term brain training with far-transfer or generalized effects on academic achievement.

Assessments developed and field tested for the mainstream student population may not be accessible for students with disabilities (SWDs) as a result of the impact of extraneous variables, including cognitive features, such as depth of knowledge required, grammatical and lexical complexity, lexical density, and textual/visual features. This study investigates the impact of these features on the performance outcomes of SWDs in the United States. Live test items from two different states with large numbers of SWDs were evaluated for their level of depth of knowledge features, linguistic complexity, two types of lexical features, and textual and visual characteristics. Results suggest that textual features have the greatest impact on the performance of students with different types of disabilities.

This study explores factors that affect the accessibility of reading comprehension assessments for students with disabilities in grade 8 public school classrooms. The study consisted of assessing students using reading comprehension passages that were broken down into shorter “segments” or “chunks” in order to assess the validity and effectiveness of segmenting and the reliability of assessment in segmenting. The results of the segmenting study indicated that: (1) segmenting did not affect reading performance of students without disabilities; suggesting that it does not compromise the validity of reading assessment; (2) segmenting did not affect reading performance of students with disabilities; and (3) the segmented version had a higher reliability for students with disabilities without affecting the reliability for students without disabilities.

The purpose of the present study is to examine the language characteristics of a few states' large-scale assessments of mathematics and science and investigate whether the language demands of the items are associated with the degree of differential item functioning (DIF) for English language learner (ELL) students. A total of 542 items from 11 assessments at Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 from three states were rated for the linguistic complexity based on a developed linguistic coding scheme. The linguistic ratings were compared to each item's DIF statistics. The results yielded a stronger association between the linguistic rating and DIF statistics for ELL students in the “relatively easy” items than in the “not easy” items. Particularly, general academic vocabulary and the amount of language in an item were found to have the strongest association with the degrees of DIF, particularly for ELL students with low English language proficiency. Furthermore, the items were grouped into four bundles to closely look at t...

Researchers are increasingly interested in the issue of school accountability. Despite this, program standards for afterschool programs are not as fully developed as in other fields. This study bridges that gap and presents the results from a study to identify benchmarks and indicators for high quality afterschool programs. This research employed a multimethod approach including a synthesis of literature on afterschool programs, observations and survey data collection at 15 high quality afterschool program sites. Results of the study suggest that most of the issues emphasized in the afterschool literature can be considered core components of a quality afterschool program. This finding was consistent across the three broad categories of program organization, program environment, and instructional features. This study also revealed that some issues emphasized in the afterschool literature should be considered extra components that can increase quality, but are not necessary. As a result, this study argues for a checklist strategy in assessing programs to meet quality-based standards. ----- Bibl iography: Huang, Denise/La Torre Matrundola, Deborah/Leon, Seth: Identification of Key Indicators for Quality in Afterschool Programs, IJREE, Vol. 2, Issue 1-2014, pp. 20-44. https://doi.org/10.3224/ijree.v2i1.19532

The article examines the results of two quasi-experimental studies of the implementation and impact of the Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC), an intervention designed to support secondary teachers’ transition to Common Core State Standards in English language arts. The first study examines LDC implementation by eighth-grade social studies and science teachers in districts across Kentucky; the second study is set in sixth-grade advanced reading classes in a large urban district in Florida. Based on teacher surveys, logs, and analysis of classroom artifacts, the LDC was implemented with reasonable fidelity across both studies. Based on available assessment scores, results show statistically significant positive effects in Kentucky for reading but no corollary effect in Florida. There were no significant differences in writing scores in either site. The conclusion shares hypotheses that may explain the differences in results and reflects on implications for evidence-based practice.