Effects of Annual Professional Performance Review on Teacher Efficacy, Instructional Practices, and Professional Development

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of new Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) legislation on professional development, instructional practices, and teacher efficacy. Additionally, teacher perceptions of the impact of new APPR standards on the disability classification rate in their school districts were examined. A mixed-method survey was conducted comparing two Average Needs, public school districts, in New York. Although similar student demographics were reported, the disability classification rate in District 1 was above the state the average and District 2 below the state average. The results of this study revealed that the implementation of APPR legislation significantly affected teacher's perceptions of professional development, instructional practices, and teacher efficacy. Professional development proved to be of high importance for all teachers in both districts. However, there was little consensus about the effects of APPR on the disability classification rates.

Principals and Student Achievement

Connections between principal leadership activities, school context, and student achievement are examined within this paper. Data for this quantitative study are from the 2013 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The eight countries of examination participated in both the TALIS and PISA and the researchers merged datasets, yielding a study sample of 1,301 schools. This paper supports a context-specific view of instructional leadership. When looking across countries, the researchers found different practices were more strongly associated with the academic achievement of students, and suggest that school leaders have a meaningful overall relationship with academic achievement, both directly and indirectly. This study therefore supports prior research about the direct and indirect effects of instructional leadership. Further study, which accounts for differences in family academic resources and school-level opportunities to learn, will better illuminate the connection between instructional leadership practices and academic achievement.

Elementary Teachers' Math Instructional Practices, Receptivity to Change, Instructional Leadership, and Academic Optimism

This study sought to identify the relationships among elementary teachers' instructional practices in mathematics pre- and post-Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS) implementation in relation to technological and pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), formative assessment, reflective practice, receptivity to change, academic optimism, and instructional leadership across age, years of experience, grade level taught, and college math credits taken in high and low needs schools. Teacher responses from low and high need schools across age, years of teaching experience, grade level taught, and college math credits taken were examined with the dimensions of mathematics instructional practices to see if any relationships exist among the variables. The implementation of CCLS mathematics had an influence on elementary-school teachers' instructional practices and attitudes in both high and low needs schools. Teacher academic optimism was reported as overall higher in high needs districts, whereas teachers in low needs districts reported an increase in instructional motivation practices after the implementation of CCLS mathematics.

Sifting Through the Sets

Data-driven decision making has become a driving factor across many industries and reliance on verifiable data is crucial in this environment. Equitable access to reliable data is a key component in establishing a just society. This chapter provides a brief overview and background to open data resources, including current initiatives and policies, along with an exploration of challenges to accessing this information. The researcher reviewed over 2,000 open data websites and repositories in order to provide a selection of these as exemplars. All resources have been annotated, with specific attention paid to repositories offering large datasets and government resources.

Retrieving HTML and XBRL Data With Microsoft Excel 2010

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has upgraded the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval (EDGAR) system, to the Interactive Data Electronic Applications (IDEA) platform, or the Next-Generation EDGAR (New EDGAR). The SEC issued its final mandate for XBRL adoption and the conversion target dates for all firms in January 2009. With this conversion, users can retrieve the financial statement information of listed companies at both the document level and data element level. This chapter reviews the fundamental concepts of XBRL and reports on the current compliance status of the SEC XBRL conversion mandate. The main task is to demonstrate how to retrieve data from the New EDGAR and how to process the data with Microsoft Excel 2010.

Hiring Practices, Uses of Social Media, and Teacher Retention Differences

This study assesses the differences between teacher retention rate and human resource (HR) managers' hiring practices, self-efficacy. Their use of social media websites (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) for hiring was evaluated. Turnover of teachers with fewer than 5 years of experience was gathered from New York State Education Department (NYSED) database. New York State schools were separated by high and low teacher retention rates. A Likert Scale Survey with one open ended question was sent to school districts HR managers. An independent sample t test was used to determine the differences between high and low teacher retention rates. A content analysis is presented using the responses to the open-ended question. Findings indicated that less than half of the HR managers used social media in the hiring process. No significant differences between teacher retention rates, HR managers' practices, and HR self-efficacy was found.

What Are the Relationships Between Poverty, Attendance, Teacher Evaluations, and High School Graduation Rates?

The focus of this study was to examine the relationships among poverty, attendance rates, the New York State's Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) teacher evaluation system, and student achievement. The setting of this study was high schools from New York State's Nassau and Suffolk counties, a suburban region of New York City. The results of this study showed that poverty had a strong negative correlation with graduation rates from the Regents Diploma, accounting for 31.02 percent of the variance. However, the negative impact that poverty had on the graduation rates from the Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation more than doubled. While high school student attendance rates had a weak, but statistically significant, positive correlation with Regents Diploma graduation rates, the positive correlation more than tripled with the Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation graduation rates. The New York State teacher evaluation system did not have the desired effect on student achievement.

Implementing Structural Equation Modeling on Public Data

The researchers used structural equation modeling (SEM) to create a model predicting fourth-grade student achievement in math by exploring the relationships among: student, household, school, and teacher factors. Public data from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) 2012–13 school report card data, NYSED fiscal reporting system, Census 2010 School District Demographics System, and 2011 Civil Right Data Collection were used from 1,263 schools in New York excluding New York City. Variables were chosen using this convenient sample and supported by our conceptual rationale. The model predicted fourth-grade math achievement with 67 percent of effect size. Household factors had strong predictive, while school attendance rate had medium predictive value for student achievement.

Pension Systems Dynamics

The main focus of the chapter is to define directions and magnitudes of causality of the pension systems, labor force, and hours worked for selected OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries through a pool data analysis. The information is examined within basic, intermediate, and advanced statistical analyses by regional comparison of the OECD countries. Main results include: (a) a positive impact of Labor Force size on Pension Systems, (b) a negative effect of the Average Hours Worked on Pension Systems, (c) when introducing cross-section and time series heterogeneity, relations are sustained from both global and regional inquiry, (d) an insightful and meticulous investigation can be performed using public and open databases if depuration of the information is well conducted.

Relationship Among Education, Income, and Life Satisfaction

This study examines the relationships among Education, Income, and Life Satisfaction. The study also seeks to learn whether Unemployment can be a mediator of these relationships. For this study, database collected by the Quality of Government Institute was used. The database contains 194 countries' records on the topic and its variables collected in 2012. Correlation to test relationship, and partial correlation to test the relationship among the variables while controlling for unemployment was used. It was found that income strongly relates to life satisfaction, and years of schooling relates weakly to life satisfaction. Years of schooling, however, strongly relates to GDP per capita. Contrary to previous studies, it was found that unemployment was not a mediator of the relationship among Education, Income, and Life Satisfaction but shows slight indication that it can be a mediator between higher education and life satisfaction. It was advised that governments put more effort into education as well as future research on enhancing the quality and efficacy of education.