Purpose of my action research and the significance

I am debating a few areas of concern in our school that would benefit from action research. The curriculum we currently use is cscope. This “package deal” comes equipped with a unit test over each section. We teach the material in the format outlined by the curriculum however, the test scores are low, the majority of the scores are not above a 70. It is not uncommon for teachers to have a class average on a particular test of a 50 or below. This topic interests me and I believe that we could benefit as a faculty from action research, the down fall is the amount of information concerning this topic. I couldn’t find too much, if any information at all over this area. There is plenty of information (journals, articles, books) over test scores and how to generate improvement, but few if any over improving cscope unit test scores. For this reason I am also considering conducting action research over an issue at our school that is currently a big and common problem. This year our school has had an increase in students being tardy to class. We have five minutes in between classes, and as of this year we went to a lockerless campus. The halls are quieter, but tardies remain high. Conducting action research could help find a solution or at least improve the tardy issue. My principal let me know that this was an issue that is a main area of concern and the amount of information available to research would be greater. I believe that in both issues the students, faculty, and administration will benefit from action research. In the issue of improving cscope test scores, the students and faculty will be the ones primarily benefitted. Teachers work hard and want to see that their work helped students succeed on whatever form of evaluation is chose. Likewise, the students want to pass the tests. Finding a solution to the tardy issue, in my opinion, will primarily benefit the administrators and teachers the most. A large amount of office referrals and students being in P.A.S.S (principal’s alternative school setting) are due to tardies. Our administration puts too much time into dealing with tardies/dress code violations. Teachers and students would also benefit from a solution to the tardy issue; students would be in class more, missing less instruction time making the teachers’ job less stressful.