https://www.tcrecord.org/LIBRARY/pdf.asp?ContentID=16963

Linking Student Achievement Growth to Professional Development Participation and Changes in Instruction: A Longitudinal Study of Elementary Students and Teachers in Title I Schools.

Research has shown that rural high school students in the United States (and elsewhere) have lower academic achievement than their nonrural counterparts. The evidence for why this inequality exists is unclear, however. The present study takes up this issue with a narrowing of the focus. Using the database of the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002-2004, the author investigates reasons for the rural achievement gap in mathematics during the last 2 years of high school. His approach focuses on the geographic disparities in the opportunity to learn advanced math. The findings show that geographic variation in high school resources and practices—operationalized as the availability of advanced math courses, evidence for track assignment by family background, and the quality of instruction—do not account for the rural math achievement gap. On the other hand, geographic variations in the opportunity to learn that result from differences in family socioeconomic status (SES) and the influence of friends’ academ...

The Effects of Opportunity to Learn, Family Socioeconomic Status, and Friends on the Rural Math Achievement Gap in High School:

This investigation examined the impact of opportunity to learn content and skills targeted by a writing assessment on the achievement of English learners (ELs), including the potential for differential impact of increased exposure to literary analysis and writing instruction. Results revealed several factors contributing to students' writing performance. Student-level and teacher-level variables were found to significantly contribute to writing performance. Although exposure to writing and literary analysis was found to positively impact student scores, our findings also suggest that the achievement gap between ELs and non-ELs increases as teacher reports of content coverage in writing increase. Implications are discussed.

Opportunity to Learn and English Learner Achievement: Is Increased Content Exposure Beneficial?.

Using Young Lives longitudinal data from Peru, this paper explores the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) measured at the age of one, opportunities to learn (OTL) and achievement in mathematics ten years later. Four variables of OTL were measured: hours of class per year, curriculum coverage, quality of teachers’ feedback, and level of cognitive demand. The last three were measured through an analysis of the exercises attempted by fourth grade students in their notebooks and workbooks. Multivariate analysis showed a robust association of one of the OTL variables (curriculum coverage, more specifically number of exercises attempted by students) with achievement in mathematics. Moreover SES at the age of one was significantly associated with this variable and with achievement by the time students were ten years old. Overall, the findings of the paper illustrate a highly unequal education system in which relatively poor children have fewer OTL in school.

The relationship between socioeconomic status at age one, opportunities to learn and achievement in mathematics in fourth grade in Peru

This study presents a descriptive analysis of 71 videotaped lessons taught by 34 highly regarded secondary English language arts, history, and science teachers, collected to inform an intervention focused on evidence-based argumentation from multiple text sources. Studying the practices of highly regarded teachers is valuable for identifying promising practices and stubborn obstacles to reform. We found that although these highly regarded teachers allocated 3 times more class time to working with text than to teacher lecture and explanation, opportunities to engage in text-based argumentation with multiple sources were rare. Furthermore, less than a 3rd of the time allocated to working with text engaged students in actively making meaning from text. When literacy tasks did occur, they were associated with a disciplinary knowledge focus, challenging the notion that literacy activity occurs at the expense of content instruction. Close reading and cross-textual analysis frequently co-occurred with each other...

Text-Based Argumentation With Multiple Sources: A Descriptive Study of Opportunity to Learn in Secondary English Language Arts, History, and Science

The purpose of this study was to examine how various opportunity to learn (OTL) variables impact student outcomes and whether these effects are consistent across different subject areas. In this study, we examined the impact of OTL variables on student performance on English and algebra assessments. Despite the differences in the subject areas, 3 consistent findings emerged. First, we found a significant positive relationship between teacher expertise and student performance. Teacher expertise in this study is defined specifically as expertise and knowledge within the content areas covered in the standards and the district assessment, rather than overall expertise in the subject area. Our study also showed that content coverage was positively correlated with student performance in English and algebra. Finally, consistent with previous findings, our study indicated that the socioeconomic status of the classroom has a significant impact on student performance.

Ginger Stoker

Papers

Relationship between Opportunity to Learn and Student Performance on English and Algebra Assessments.