Introduction With support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, SRI Education conducted a statewide study examining the role County Offices of Education (COEs) play in supporting arts education in California. This study follows a 2007 study of arts education in California, An Unfinished Canvas, and its recent 2020 update, Creativity Challenge. A key finding […]
Mary M. Klute
SRI Author
What foundational skills matter for Algebra I success?
Algebra I is considered a gateway course for advanced math. Consequently, there has been a trend toward enrolling students in Algebra I earlier in the middle grades in order to increase opportunities for students to take more advanced math courses in high school. The challenge for educators lies in determining which students are ready to take Algebra I in middle school and which students need more time to develop foundational knowledge and skills before taking Algebra I. To inform strategies that address this challenge, educators from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education partnered with Regional Educational Laboratory Central to investigate the specific foundational knowledge and skills that are associated with achievement in Algebra I. This study examined whether student knowledge in five domains of math assessed in grade 7 was associated with Algebra I achievement. The study found that students’ scores in all five of the grade 7 domains were related to Algebra I achievement, but their performance in the expressions, equations, and inequalities domain was most strongly related. The number sense and operations domain was more strongly associated with Algebra I achievement for English learner students than it was for students without this designation. No clear differences in these associations were found between students who were receiving special education services and those who were not.
Formative assessment and elementary school student academic achievement: A review of the evidence
Formative assessment is a process that engages teachers and students in gathering and using information about what students are learning. This comprehensive and systematic review identifies 22 rigorous studies of the effectiveness of formative assessment interventions among elementary students. Results of the study indicate that, overall, formative assessment has a positive effect on student achievement. On average, across the studies, students who participated in formative assessment performed better on measures of academic achievement than those who did not. Formative assessment interventions in mathematics had larger effects, on average, than formative assessment interventions in reading or writing. Both student-directed formative assessment and formative assessment directed by other agents, such as a teacher or a computer program, appear to be effective for mathematics. Other-directed formative assessment interventions appear to be more effective for reading than student-directed formative assessment interventions.
Summary of research on the association between state interventions in chronically low-performing schools and student achievement
This report presents a summary of research on the associations between state interventions in chronically low-performing schools and student achievement. The majority of the research focused on one type of state intervention: working with a turnaround partner. In this type of intervention, states assign an individual or team to work with a school to identify strengths and weaknesses, develop a school improvement plan, and provide technical assistance as the school implements the plan. In some cases, additional funding is also provided to support implementation of the school improvement efforts. Most of the studies were descriptive, which limits conclusions about the effectiveness of the interventions. Results of studies of turnaround partner interventions were mixed, and suggested that student achievement was more likely to improve when particular factors were in place in schools such as strong leadership, use of data to guide instruction, and a positive school culture characterized by trust and increased expectations for students. Although researchers sought to include research on a variety of state intervention types, few studies were identified that examined other types of interventions such as school closure, charter conversion, and school redesign.
