Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Acker-Hocevar, Michele A.

Abstract

This research compared the effectiveness of efforts by the Palm Beach County School District and the Miami-Dade County School District to raise academic achievement at 39 comparable low-performing schools in their districts. Palm Beach County School District mandated a highly prescriptive plan that involved intense district staff involvement during the 2003--2004 school year. Miami-Dade County School District utilized a highly descriptive plan that entailed only mild to moderate involvement from district staff. A matched-pair research design was used to examine what differences, if any, existed between the learning gains of comparable schools in Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade County as measured by changes in mean developmental scale scores on the Reading and Math subtests of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Using a two-tailed test comparing the means of the two groups (alpha < .05), there was no statistical significance in the mean changes in mean developmental scale scores (MDSS) in reading, and no significant correlation between the schools in the matched pairs in either reading or math (p > .05). There was statistical significance (t = 2.633; p = .012) in the changes in mean developmental scale scores in math, however, and a test of effect size (d = .69334) indicated that this was of moderate practical significance.

Extent

124 p.

Comments

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2004.|College of Education|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (Ed.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2004.

Identifier

FADT12112

Format

pdf

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