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From 2012 through 2016, MDRC, a non-profit research organization, conducted an evaluation of the scale-up effort of Success for All PowerTeaching in middle-school math. PowerTeaching, a structured cooperative learning program, was designed to do just that. The study was funded by an Investing in Innovation (i3) fund from the U.S. Department of Education. The expansion of PowerTeaching through an i3 grant offers the education field a unique opportunity to learn what it takes to help teachers create cooperative learning environments in their classrooms.

The Success for All PowerTeaching scale-up evaluation examines the PowertTeaching implementation and how it impacts five school districts over a two-year period (the 2014-2015 school year through the 2015-2016 school year). It also considers the scale-up process itself - the methods employed and the extent to which the Success for All Foundation (SFAF), the organization that developed and provides technical assistance to schools operating the program, achieved its scale-up goals.

The ten data files included in this study contain a range of variable information gathered from student-level test scores, teacher and school principal surveys, school achievement snapshots, teacher logs, and scale-up initiative evaluations. Key variables include district IDs, teacher and principal IDs, baseline and outcome standardized test scores, structural and instructional processes, and records of teacher logs. Demographic variables for students include information on race, gender, special education, free/reduced lunch eligibility, ELL status, and age.

The Hawaii Personality and Health Cohort consists of teacher ratings of their students' personalities. John M. (Jack) Digman orchestrated the collection of the child personality data between 1959 and 1967, during his tenure as a professor at the University of Hawaii. Childhood data was collected on 2418 children in classrooms on the islands of Oahu and Kauai. Six waves of data collection were completed, and eighty-eight teachers provided assessments of their students. Children ranged in age from 5 to 14, and were in grades 1,2,3,5 or 6.

The initial goal of this work was to generate ratings using a broad set of items to allow for research on the structure of personality in childhood. The data collection predated the acceptance of the Big Five model of personality. Items were selected to capture the entire range of observable personality, which at the time was thought to be characterized by 10 or more domains. Subsequent analysis by Dr. Digman, and later by Lewis R. (Lew) Goldberg, demonstrated a consistent five factor structure in the child personality data. In the early days of the emergence of the Big Five model of personality structure, the Hawaii child data provided initial evidence to support the acceptance of Big Five model of personality.

Subsequent follow-up of the sample in adulthood has included multiple questionnaires, and assessments of objective markers of health. These follow-up data allowed for the first ever assessment of the stability in the Big Five over a span of 40 years. At average age 50, participants were recruited for a half day clinic visit. Objective markers of health collected at this time have supported work testing childhood personality as a predictor of physical health, and also research testing lifespan pathways linking childhood personality to physical health in adulthood.

This initial release includes the full childhood cohort data. Also included are a set of Big Five scores that have been used in published research on the Hawaii Personality Cohort, and a number of different sets of personality scales derived from these data. Basic demographic information is also provided. Subsequent data releases will include questionnaire and clinic data collected in adulthood.

For additional information about the correspondence between these datasets, please see the accompanying Excel file, which provides a table of overlapping variables across the datasets. Further information about this crosswalk file can be found in the "Item Overlap" section of the accompanying Study Description document.

Demographic variables included in this study include gender, cultural identity, and year of birth.

School safety research rarely considers the school security climate as a product of the simultaneous implementation of several school safety interventions. This is potentially problematic, as schools seldom employ only one safety intervention. Rather, schools today employ several interventions simultaneously to meet their safety and security needs. The purpose of this study is to investigate and identify effective types of school security climates and examine student growth within these climates. This multi-year project attempts to meet two goals: 1) Identify effective types of school security climates; and 2) Determine how the school security climate affects individual students. Data were collected from approximately 600 students attending 10 schools over the course of three years. Measures included an adapted version of the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) and the Maryland Safe and Supportive Schools Survey (MDS3). The survey also included questions to obtain respondent demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity) and other descriptive information about students and their experiences.

MT21 is a cross-national study of the preparation of middle school mathematics teachers. Countries participating included Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), South Korea (Korea), Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico, and the United States. Data were collected from teachers in their first and last year of preparation by sampling institutions in each country. Future teachers were asked about their backgrounds, course-taking and program activities, knowledge relevant to their teaching (mathematical and pedagogical), and beliefs and perspectives on content and pedagogy.

The 1995 Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data revealed that countries with higher achievement have teachers who teach substantially different content than that of their less accomplished counterparts (see Schmidt et al., 1996; Schmidt et al., 2001). The 1996 Report of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future argued that what teachers know and do in the classroom matters for pupil learning. It also argued that teacher education might be a viable policy tool to improve the quality of education (National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, 1996). United States reform efforts are consistent with this line of thought. They have introduced standards to measure teacher quality as it relates to student achievement. This, in turn, led to accountability concerns regarding teacher preparation programs (INTASC, 1995; Murray, 2000; Leithwood, Edge and Jantzi, 1999; NCATE, 2000).

The MT21 Project was designed to answer the following question: how shall we prepare our future teachers to teach a more rigorous curriculum to all students? Several assumptions were made going into this work: the concepts and models defining teacher preparation are not fixed across the world. Recognizing and understanding this diversity to develop a cross-national study of teacher preparation poses a complex and challenging problem. It is hoped that the resulting international data would not only serve to provide policy insights but would also bring about change by making visible contrasts with other countries in terms of teacher preparation in the United States.

Communities In Schools (CIS) works to provide and connect students with integrated support services to keep them on a path to graduation. The intent of the CIS model is to reduce dropout rates by integrating community and school-based support services within schools through the provision of "Level 1" and "Level 2" services. Level 1 services are broadly available to all students or to groups of students and are usually short-term, low intensity activities or services. CIS Coordinators spend much of their time focused on more intensive Level 2 "case-managed" services, which they provide to a subset of students displaying one or more significant risk factors, such as poor academic performance, a high absentee rate, or behavioral problems.

This study was a two-year randomized controlled trial of Level-2 CIS case management, which examined service provision, student experiences and student outcomes. This trial was half of a two-pronged national evaluation, the other half was a quasi-experimental study of the whole-school model. The study evaluated 24 mostly urban, low-income secondary schools in North Carolina and Texas during the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school years; baseline data was also collected during the 2011-2012 school year. Data was collected through student surveys, school records, and CIS management information systems (MIS) data.

The data in this collection is student-level, including all information collected about students in the study sample with 613 variables and 4459 cases. The dataset includes three school years of data: baseline period (2011-2012), first year of implementation (2012-2013) and second year of implementation (2013-2014). Demographic variables in this collection include: free lunch status, special education status, employment, race, language, ethnicity, gender, household members, number of siblings, parents' education level, and grade level.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what students in elementary and secondary schools in the United States know and can do in various subject areas. Assessments are conducted periodically in mathematics, reading, science, writing, the arts, civics, economics, geography, United States history, and beginning in 2014, in Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL). Since NAEP assessments are administered uniformly using the same sets of test booklets across the United States, NAEP results serve as a common metric for all states and selected urban districts. The assessment stays essentially the same from year to year, with only carefully documented changes. This permits NAEP to provide a clear picture of student academic progress over time and for teachers, principals, parents, policymakers, and researchers to use NAEP results to assess progress and develop ways to improve education in the United States. For more information, please read An Introduction to NAEP.

There are two types of assessments: main NAEP and long-term trend NAEP. Main NAEP is administered to fourth-, eighth-, and twelfth-graders across the United States in a variety of subjects. The Main NAEP is conducted between the last week of January and the first week in March every year. National results are available for all assessments and subjects. Results for states and select urban districts are available in some subjects for grades 4 and 8. The Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) is a special project developed to determine the feasibility of reporting district-level NAEP results for large urban districts. In 2009 a trial state assessment was administered at grade 12. Long-term trend NAEP is administered nationally every four years. During the same academic year, 13-year-olds are assessed in the fall, 9-year-olds in the winter, and 17-year-olds in the spring. Long-term trend assessments measure student performance in mathematics and reading, and allow the performance of students from recent time periods to be compared with students since the early 1970s.

For example, the 1997 and 2008 NAEP arts assessments were part of the Main NAEP Assessments. The NAEP 1997 Arts Assessment was conducted nationally at grade 8. For music and visual arts, representative samples of public and nonpublic school students were assessed. A special "targeted" sample of students took the theatre assessment. Schools offering at least 44 classroom hours of a theatre course per semester, and offering courses including more than the history or literature of theatre, were identified. Students attending those schools who had accumulated 30 hours of theatre classes by the end of the 1996-97 school year were selected to take the theatre assessment. The NAEP 2008 Arts Assessment was administered to a nationally representative sample of 7,900 eighth-grade public and private school students. Approximately one-half of these students were assessed in music, and the other half were assessed in visual arts. The music portion of the assessment measured students' ability to respond to music in various ways. Students were asked to analyze and describe aspects of music they heard, critique instrumental and vocal performances, and demonstrate their knowledge of standard musical notation and music's role in society. The visual arts portion of the assessment included questions that measured students' ability to respond to art as well as questions that measured their ability to create art. Responding questions asked students to analyze and describe works of art and design. For example, students were asked to describe specific differences in how certain parts of an artist's self-portrait were drawn. Creating questions required students to create works of art and design of their own. For example, students were asked to create a self-portrait that was scored for identifying detail, compositional elements, and use of materials.

Most recently, in 2016, a total of 8,800 eighth-graders in the nation's public and private schools responded to and critiqued existing works of music and visual art and created their own original artwork. NCES collected and analyzed the data and released the 2016 report highlighting key findings. Average music and visual arts responding scores are reported separately on a scale of 0 to 300 points. Average creating scores for visual arts are reported on a scale of 0 to 100 percent. Results are also reported by student groups, school type, and region, as well as in comparison to the 2008 assessment.

In addition, NAEP has a number of special studies that are conducted periodically. These include research and development efforts such as the High School Transcript Study and the National Indian Education Study. More information on these special studies is available on the NAEP Web site.

The Oregon Youth Substance Use Project (OYSUP) began in 1998, with the recruitment of 1,075 first through fifth graders within a single school district in a working class community in western Oregon. Youth were followed from early childhood (1st through 5th grade), through adolescence, and into emerging adulthood (at age 20-22), with additional data collection at age 20 to 26. The primary objective of OYSUP was to identify risk and protective factors predictive of or comorbid with the development of substance use and at-risk sexual behaviors. OYSUP consisted of a multi-method annual assessment of etiological factors across numerous contextual (e.g., family, peer, neighborhood and school) and individual (personality, biological) domains, predictive of children's cognitions regarding substance use, their own substance use and their at-risk sexual behaviors (beginning in middle school). This unique study follows a representative sample of youth with approximately annual assessments from early childhood, through adolescence, and into emerging adulthood (at age 20-22). The primary objective of the original project and its renewals is to identify risk and protective factors predictive of or comorbid with the development of substance use and at-risk sexual behaviors.

Quantitative survey data was collected from each respondent from 1998 to 2014. Within the aims of the original OYSUP study and the three subsequent renewals, participants and their parents were followed annually until they were one-year post-high school, with an additional intensive assessment at age 20-22. In each year, the target participant and their parents completed assessments. The intensive assessment at age 20-22 included a diagnostic interview with the target participants and an assessment of cortisol reactivity in response to acute stress. During the school years, teachers completed assessments assessing their student's behavior, and school records for most students were obtained each year. In addition, principals in elementary schools completed school climate assessments and census data is used to obtain measures of neighborhood climate. In the third renewal, questionnaires and interviews were given across a two-year span, when participants were aged 20 to 26. The goal of this supplement was to investigate the factors leading to e-cigarette use and and use of other novel tobacco products across two years. Finally, respondents' demographic information was also collected.

The Simmons Longitudinal Study (SLS) is a community-based study that has prospectively traced the life course of a single-aged cohort from childhood (age 5) to adulthood (age 26). Data were collected from multiple informants at seven major time points: age 5 (1977), age 6 (1978), age 9 (1980-1981), age 15 (1987), age 18 (1990), age 21 (1993-1994), and age 26 (1998). Since its inception in 1977, the SLS has utilized a multidisciplinary, multimethod approach, with the dual goals of: (1) tracing the development and course of academic difficulties, behavior problems, and psychopathology; and (2) identifying factors that promote health functioning from early childhood (age 5) to adulthood (age 26). The SLS has consistently emphasized the identification of modifiable social and environmental risk and protective factors that can be targeted directly in prevention and intervention programs. To date, SLS has published 50 journal articles and 9 book chapters. The original study group was comprised of every child who entered kindergarten in the fall of 1977 in one public school district in a northeastern town in the United States. For this wave of the study, Wave 5, researchers revisited with study participants in 1990 when they were 18 years old and most were seniors in high school thinking about future plans for work and education. The interviews gathered information on future goals, behavioral and emotional adjustment, current social and interpersonal functioning, and mental health problems such as depression, and substance abuse and dependence.

The Simmons Longitudinal Study (SLS) is a community-based study that has prospectively traced the life course of a single-aged cohort from childhood (age 5) to adulthood (age 26). Data were collected from multiple informants at seven major time points: age 5 (1977), age 6 (1978), age 9 (1980-1981), age 15 (1987), age 18 (1990), age 21 (1993-1994), and age 26 (1998). Since its inception in 1977, the SLS has utilized a multidisciplinary, multimethod approach, with the dual goals of: (1) tracing the development and course of academic difficulties, behavior problems, and psychopathology; and (2) identifying factors that promote health functioning from early childhood (age 5) to adulthood (age 26). The SLS has consistently emphasized the identification of modifiable social and environmental risk and protective factors that can be targeted directly in prevention and intervention programs. To date, SLS has published 50 journal articles and 9 book chapters. The original study group was comprised of every child who entered kindergarten in the fall of 1977 in one public school district in a northeastern town in the United States. For this wave of the study, Wave 4, interviews were conducted with the adolescents, then age 15 in 1987, most of whom were in 9th grade. They reported about their current family and peer relations, social and extracurricular activities, and overall adjustment. In addition, mothers reported on their children's development and behavior. When mothers were not available to be interviewed, interviewers spoke with another close family member. With parental consent, school records provided information about academic performance.