Publications & ProductsSearch Results: (1-15 of 437 records)
| Pub Number | Title |  Date |
|---|---|---|
| REL 2023002 | Supporting the California Department of Education in Examining Data to Inform the Setting of Thresholds on the California Alternate English Language Proficiency Assessments for California
Staff from the California Department of Education (CDE) will present findings to the State Board of Education (SBE) from a project CDE conducted with analytic technical assistance from the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) West. The SBE meeting will take place on May 18 and 19, 2023 at the California State Board of Education, 1430 N Street, Room 1101, Sacramento, California. This item is currently placed as the third item the SBE will take up, making it likely to be presented around midday on May 18. At the meeting, CDE plans to present the findings and implications from analyses it conducted of student achievement on the state’s alternate English language proficiency and English language arts assessments. REL West staff will attend the presentation in order to briefly describe REL West’s technical assistance role and support the CDE in addressing any questions posed by Board members about technical aspects of the data analysis that cannot be answered by CDE staff. The technical memo and slide deck will be made available on the REL website soon after the presentation to the Board. |
5/18/2023 |
| NCEE 2023004 | Evaluating the Federal Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority: Early Implementation and Progress of State Efforts to Develop New Statewide Academic Assessments
Education officials have long hoped that the statewide academic assessments most students take each year could be used not only for accountability, but also to guide instruction. Congress established the Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority (IADA) program in 2015 to help address this goal, offering states temporary flexibility from certain federal testing requirements so that they may more easily make progress toward replacing their current assessments with more innovative ones. However, states approved for IADA must still show that their innovative assessments meet most requirements for federal accountability, and they are expected to implement the new assessments statewide within 5 years. This report describes the progress of the first five IADA systems through the 2020–21 school year. The report is primarily based on an analysis of states' IADA applications and performance reports to the U.S. Department of Education and is part of a broader evaluation of IADA required by Congress. |
4/27/2023 |
| NCES 2023009 | Digest of Education Statistics, 2021
The 57th in a series of publications initiated in 1962, the Digest's purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of education from prekindergarten through graduate school. The Digest contains data on a variety of topics, including the number of schools and colleges, teachers, enrollments, and graduates, in addition to educational attainment, finances, and federal funds for education, libraries, and international comparisons. |
3/8/2023 |
| NFES 2023026 | Forum Guide to State Education Agency Support for Local Education Agencies in Civil Rights Data Reporting
The Forum Guide to State Education Agency Support for Local Education Agencies in Civil Rights Data Reporting presents a variety of effective methods through which state education agencies (SEAs) can support their local education agencies (LEAs) in reporting civil rights data to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. In addition, the guide provides several detailed case studies from states that currently support their LEA reporting. |
2/7/2023 |
| REL 2023148 | Interpreting Findings from an Early Learning Inventory Pilot Study
This project was part of a larger REL Southwest coaching series to support the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) in using an early learning inventory (ELI) to assess children’s knowledge and skills at kindergarten entry and to improve state-funded early learning programs. The goals of the project were to assist OSDE in (1) preparing to implement an ELI pilot study, (2) preparing for sampling and recruitment for the ELI pilot study, (3) developing data collection measures to collect information during the pilot study about how the ELI is implemented and teacher outcomes, and (4) analyzing and interpreting data from the ELI pilot study. The coaching was delivered over the course of five sessions from fall 2020 to fall 2022. OSDE staff were the primary participants. The final two sessions of this coaching project included a review of the pilot study findings and methodology. This project equipped OSDE staff with information to make evidence-based decisions about the ELI and to conduct a more rigorous future study with the ELI. |
1/23/2023 |
| REL 2023147 | The Louisiana Believe and Prepare Educator Preparation Reform: Findings from the Pilot and Early Implementation Years
Believe and Prepare is a teacher preparation reform implemented by the Louisiana Department of Education in collaboration with school systems and teacher preparation programs across the state. It was piloted in the 2014/15 school year and became mandatory in July 2018 for incoming teacher candidates in all 18 institutions of higher education that offer traditional teacher preparation programs. The reform focused on competency-based curricula, extended clinical experiences, and rigorous mentor teacher training. A central requirement of the reform is that teacher candidates must participate in a yearlong residency with a mentor teacher. This replaced the prior shorter-term student teaching requirement, typically six weeks. To explore the extent to which the reform is contributing to expected improvement in outcomes for early career teachers, this study examined the association between the reform and in-service teacher performance ratings, teacher retention, student test scores, teacher competency, and the likelihood of three placement outcomes (being placed in the school where the teacher completed a residency, filling a teaching position in a shortage area, and being placed in a rural school). Teachers who completed a program that had implemented Believe and Prepare were 2 percentage points more likely than teachers who completed a program that had not implemented it to stay in Louisiana for at least one year and 7 percentage points more likely to stay in the same school district for at least three years. Grade 4–8 students whose teachers completed a preparation program that had implemented Believe and Prepare during the pilot years scored 0.04 standard deviation lower on English language arts tests than students whose teachers completed a program that had not implemented it. Other teacher outcomes such as in-service performance ratings, competency as measured by Praxis II scores, school placement, and job assignment were not statistically different between teachers who completed a program that had implemented Believe and Prepare and teachers who completed other programs. |
12/12/2022 |
| REL 2023146 | Indicators of School Performance in Texas
The School Improvement Division of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) identifies, monitors, and supports low-performing schools. To identify low-performing schools, TEA assigns annual academic accountability ratings to its districts and schools, but these ratings are only provided once per year and are vulnerable to disruptions in the assessment system. Schools that receive low accountability ratings do not meet accountability expectations and are considered low-performing. |
12/5/2022 |
| REL 2023140 | Biliteracy Seals in a Large Urban District in New Mexico: Who Earns Them and How Do They Impact College Outcomes?
New Mexico is one of 48 states that offer a biliteracy seal to high school graduates to recognize their proficiency in a non-English language. The Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest English Learners Research Partnership collaborated with a large urban district in New Mexico to study the characteristics and college readiness of students who earn different types of biliteracy seals (state, district, and global seals) and whether earning a seal improves college outcomes. The study used data from three cohorts of students who graduated from high school in the district from 2017/18 to 2019/20. The study examined the characteristics and college readiness of students who earned different types of seals, the number of students who met some requirements for a seal but did not earn one, and the effect of earning a seal on college outcomes. |
12/1/2022 |
| REL 2023145 | Examining student group differences in Arkansas’ indicators of postsecondary readiness and success
Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest partnered with the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) to examine Arkansas’s middle and high school indicators of postsecondary readiness and success, building on an earlier study of these indicators (Hester et al., 2021). Academic indicators include attaining proficiency on state achievement tests, grade point average, enrollment in advanced courses, and community service learning. Behavioral indicators include attendance, suspension, and expulsion. Using data on statewide grade 6 cohorts from 2008/09 and 2009/10, the study examined the percentages of students who attained the readiness and success indicators and the percentages of students who attained postsecondary readiness and success outcomes by gender, race/ethnicity, eligibility for the National School Lunch Program, English learner student status, disability status, age, and district locale. The study also examined whether the predictive accuracy, specificity, and strength of the indicators varied by these student groups. Three key findings emerged. First, the attainment of indicators of postsecondary readiness and success differed substantially for nearly all student groups, with the number of substantial differences on academic indicators exceeding those on behavioral indicators. The largest number of substantial differences in the attainment of academic indicators were between Black and White students, between students eligible and ineligible for the National School Lunch Program (an indicator of economic disadvantage), and between students who entered grade 6 before and after age 13. Second, attainment of postsecondary readiness and success outcomes varied substantially across student groups, with the largest differences between students with and without a disability. Third, predictive accuracy (the percentage of students with the same predicted and actual outcomes) and strength (the relative importance of a single indicator) were similar across student groups in most cases. Leaders at ADE and in Arkansas districts can use these findings to identify appropriate indicators of postsecondary readiness and success and to target supports toward student groups who most need them. These findings can help leaders identify and address disparities such as inequitable access to resources and supportive learning environments. |
11/21/2022 |
| REL 2023144 | English learner proficiency in Texas before and during the COVID-19 pandemic
This study examined levels of English proficiency before and during the COVID-19 pandemic among English learner students in grades 3–12 in Texas. In 2020/21, nearly 750,000 students in grades 3–12—approximately one in five Texas students—were English learner students. In accordance with Texas state law and the Every Student Succeeds Act, English proficiency is measured annually using a statewide assessment, the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS), which assesses English learner students’ listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in English. This study focused on TELPAS scores among students who took the test in 2020/21 and compared those scores with a matched cohort of similar students from 2018/19. The study found that, despite missing data because of pandemic-related disruptions to testing, students who took the TELPAS were representative of the overall Texas English learner student population in the years prior to and during the pandemic. The study also found that rates of reclassification from an English learner student to an English proficient student declined between 2017/18 and 2020/21, and trends in the characteristics of reclassified students changed, with lower percentages of students in major urban areas, eligible for the National School Lunch Program, who spoke Spanish at home, and who identified as Hispanic reclassified in 2020/21 than in 2017/18. On average, during the pandemic, English learner students in elementary grades earned meaningfully lower scores on the listening, speaking, and reading domains of the TELPAS than similar students earned before the pandemic, particularly in speaking. The findings for secondary grades were mixed; middle school students earned lower scores in listening and high school students earned higher scores in speaking. Finally, the study did not find evidence that English learner student program models, such as dual-language immersion or content-based English as a second language, were meaningfully associated with English proficiency in 2020/21. Leaders at the Texas Education Agency and Texas school districts could consider focusing recovery resources on elementary schools and to some degree on middle schools and identifying and supporting evidence-based strategies to cultivate proficiency. The Texas Education Agency may consider studying the effect of program models on language proficiency and the relationship between reclassification, shifting English proficiency levels, and changing reclassification standards. |
11/3/2022 |
| REL 2023142 | An Examination of the Costs of Texas Community Colleges
Policymakers in Texas want to understand the funding levels necessary for community colleges to meet their promise of providing an affordable and accessible pathway to a postsecondary certificate or degree. Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest conducted this study to help leaders at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board better understand the extent to which Texas community colleges have adequate funding for reaching the desired levels of student success, as measured by success points milestones used in the state’s performance-based funding system. The study involved three types of analyses: a needs analysis, an equity analysis, and a cost function analysis. The needs analysis found that community colleges with higher percentages of first-generation college students, students who are economically disadvantaged, students who are academically disadvantaged, students older than 24 years, and English learner students earn fewer success points milestones per full-time equivalent student. The equity analysis found that community colleges with higher percentages of students who are academically disadvantaged spent less per full-time equivalent student, suggesting that there may be resource inequities for these students. The cost function analysis found that spending was not high enough to cover the cost of providing an equal opportunity for first-generation college students, students who are economically disadvantaged, students older than 24 years, and English learner students to achieve the same level of outcomes as students without these needs. The findings from this study can inform Texas policymakers’ efforts to distribute funding for community colleges to support equitable opportunities for all students to succeed in college. |
10/26/2022 |
| REL 2023141 | Early Progress and Outcomes of a Grow Your Own Grant Program for High School Students and Paraprofessionals in Texas
The Texas Education Agency launched the Grow Your Own (GYO) grant program in 2018 to encourage districts to develop or expand existing high-quality education and training courses for high school students and to support district-employed paraprofessionals (including instructional aides and long-term substitute teachers) to pursue certifications that would allow them to enter full-time teaching roles. This study aimed to help state education leaders in Texas understand the progress of districts in implementing the GYO program and the early outcomes of participants. This study analyzed data from 2015/16 through 2020/21 for districts that received GYO funding in the first two grant cycles and districts in the same geographic locales within the same regions that did not receive GYO funding (comparison districts). The study found that the majority of districts awarded a GYO grant were in rural areas and small towns. GYO districts were more likely to have a smaller enrollment and had a higher average percentage of Hispanic students than comparison districts. The findings suggest that the program appeared to meet the Texas Education Agency’s goal of providing opportunities to students and paraprofessionals in rural and small school settings and students of color to participate in GYO activities. The study also found that the percentage of students completing education and training courses in GYO districts was low (about 10 percent) during the grant years, and the percentage was similar in comparison districts before and after the grant awards. A disproportionate share of students who completed education and training courses in GYO districts were female. Although it is too soon to tell whether the GYO program will, over time, increase the size and diversity of the state’s teacher pool, leaders at the Texas Education Agency can use these early findings to both understand the progress of districts in achieving the GYO grant program aims and help identify aspects of the program that might need further investigation. |
10/24/2022 |
| NCES 2023010 | NAEP Reading 2022 State and District Snapshot Reports
Each state/jurisdiction and district that participated in the NAEP 2022 reading assessment receives a one-page Snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. The reports in this series provide bulleted text describing overall student results, bar charts showing NAEP achievement levels for selected years in which the state or district participated, and tables displaying results by gender, race/ethnicity, and eligibility for free/reduced-price lunch. In addition, bulleted text describes the trends in average scale score gaps by gender, race/ethnicity, and eligibility for free/reduced-price lunch. Each state/jurisdiction Snapshot report includes a map comparing the 2022 average score to other states/jurisdictions; and each district Snapshot report includes a table comparing the 2022 average score to other participating districts. |
10/24/2022 |
| NCES 2023011 | NAEP Mathematics 2022 State and District Snapshot Reports
Each state/jurisdiction and district that participated in the NAEP 2022 mathematics assessment receives a one-page Snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. The reports in this series provide bulleted text describing overall student results, bar charts showing NAEP achievement levels for selected years in which the state or district participated, and tables displaying results by gender, race/ethnicity, and eligibility for free/reduced-price lunch. In addition, bulleted text describes the trends in average scale score gaps by gender, race/ethnicity, and eligibility for free/reduced-price lunch. Each state/jurisdiction Snapshot report includes a map comparing the 2022 average score to other states/jurisdictions; and each district Snapshot report includes a table comparing the 2022 average score to other participating districts. |
10/24/2022 |
| REL 2023139 | Practical Measurement for Continuous Improvement in the Classroom: A Toolkit for Educators
This toolkit is designed to guide educators in developing and improving practical measurement instruments for use in networked improvement communities (NICs) and other education contexts in which principles of continuous improvement are applied. Continuous improvement includes distinct repeating processes: understanding the problem, identifying specific targets for improvement, determining the change to introduce, implementing the change, and evaluating if and how the change led to improvements. This toolkit is intended for a team of educators who have already identified specific student learning needs and strategies to improve instruction to address those needs and are ready to test these strategies using continuous improvement processes. The toolkit aims to help the team with the final step in the cycle, which includes collecting data to measure implementation of changes and intended outcomes and using those data to inform future action. Measures for continuous improvement should be closely aligned to student learning goals and implementation of instructional strategies driving the continuous improvement effort, and they should be practical to use in a classroom setting. A team of educators can use this toolkit to proceed through a series of steps to identify what to measure, consider existing instruments, draft instruments, evaluate and refine instruments, plan data collection routines, and plan for data discussions to interpret the data and inform action. Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest developed the resources in the toolkit in partnership with the Oklahoma State Department of Education team working with the Oklahoma Excel NICs. |
10/11/2022 |
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