Education Commons^™

Attending High School Algebra I: In Search Of Well-Managed, Engaging, Culturally Relevant, And Caring Classrooms, Cassandra Dunn Gannett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The inequities in learning between the rich and the poor have become pervasive in United States. This is evidenced by the high school graduation rates, college attendance percentages, and employment statistics. Upon another wave of reform, the Common Core State Standards in mathematics are currently being adopted in hopes of increasing learning for all students, with a focus on college and career readiness. This study is intent on finding ways to remedy the inequities in mathematics between the high income and low income schools by focusing on one of the great glass ceilings to high school graduation and beyond, high …

Computer-Based Modeling Of K-12 Faculty Activities: A Case Study, Amanda Rose Kyker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis sought to lay the foundation for an application for tracking K-12 teacher activities. Its primary contribution is a descriptive model of K-12 activities. The work's starting point, the Faculty Activities System project, is an ETSU initiative that seeks to produce a tool for university-level academic accountabilities management. It was possible to adapt the FAS project's data model for K-12 activities. The resulting model was validated by experts in the field of education and teachers and administrators across Tennessee.

A second strategy for model validation, using national and state legislation and expert recommendations, determined that the model did well …

Propensity Score Methods As Alternatives To Value-Added Modeling For The Estimation Of Teacher Contributions To Student Achievement, Kimberlee Kaye Davison

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the potential for using propensity score-based matching methods to estimate teacher contributions to student learning. Value-added models are increasingly used in teacher accountability systems in the United States in spite of ongoing qualms about the validity of teacher quality estimates resulting from those models. Using a large national dataset, teacher effects were estimated for 435 teachers using both value-added and propensity score-based approaches. The two approaches resulted in teacher effect estimates that were moderately correlated, with propensity score-based estimates more highly correlating with the value-added estimates as the matching ratio was increased. …