| Since the inception of No Child Left Behind ( NCLB, 2002), high stakes testing (standardized test performance that is deemed a critical deciding factor in teacher efficacy) is the driving force behind all academic programming and curriculum design. Teachers are accountable for producing proficient test scores among their students. In the past, the education community has focused on skills and concepts, such as reading, writing and arithmetic. Currently, subject area content mastery is the primary emphasis. Further still, educators are rapidly approaching a time, quite possibly, when regardless of a school's other positive efforts or accomplishments, the standardized test score data will be the sole benchmark by which it is judged. Due to this rising development, initiatives for increasing student achievement must somehow involve or incorporate raising test scores. This study explores the prevailing notion that intense, well-developed tutorial interventions sufficiently prepare students to perform adequately on these crucial standardized tests, even for those students who may have previously experienced the lowest possible levels of academic achievement. The tutorial interventions refer to supplemental instruction, which the schools provide to the students to ameliorate subject area deficits, principally in the mathematics and language arts/reading content courses. The statistical tests analyzed the correlations of tutorial participation to school report cards and pre-TCAP/RENAISSANCE* formative assessment scores. The phrase "middle school students" constitutes sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Five hundred students composed the experimental sample of the population. Specifically, the research questions explored were: (1) Is there a statistically significant relationship between tutees and higher semester grades in mathematics and language arts/reading? (2) Is there a statistically significant relationship between tutees and increases in resulting RENAISSANCE formative assessment scores? and (3) How do tutees rate their site-based after-school tutoring programs? A positive correlation resulted between tutees and their corresponding higher grades, as compared to their non-participatory counterparts. For certain subject area tests at certain grade levels, RENAISSANCE score results rejected the null hypothesis and for other tests, the null hypothesis was credited. Pertaining to the survey results overall, students believe they benefited from supplemental instruction because it helped them make better grades and perform proficiently on the TCAP test. Additionally, pedagogical methods were ranked against the Madeline Hunter Direct Instruction Model, which disaggregated the teaching process into distinct components so the research could identify which steps were included in the sessions. Possible conclusions of these data results are elucidated in the Discussion chapter.;*see Definitions in Chapter 1 for detailed definitions of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), RENAISSANCE test, and Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) test. |
