This two-year study examined the impact of Spalding's The Writing Road to Reading literacy program on student achievement across grades K-5 in 14 Arizona schools. Using a quasi-experimental matched design, researchers compared 687 students from three Spalding schools with 1228 students from eleven comparison schools using Fundations. Data from…

The purpose of this article is to describe the learnings of primary school teachers in rural Guatemala as a result of an action research experience. This experience took place in the context of the "Basic Education Quality and Transitions" activity, or BEQT, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and…

How computers in schools impact on children's learning has been studied through research that explores student achievement at one point in time or by comparing different classroom contexts with differing results. The introduction of an optional netbook purchasing scheme for children in a low socio-economic community provided an opportunity to…

This longitudinal quantitative study examines the first and second language vocabulary development of prekindergarten students enrolled in an inclusive foreign language exploratory (FLEX) program. The FLEX program, framed by the Cognitive Retroactive Hypothesis of cross-linguistic transfer, is situated in a context where students with special…

We investigate the effect of attending selective secondary schools belonging to the "Bicentenario" schools program in Chile, a free education option that is intended to give vulnerable students everywhere in Chile a unique educational opportunity, in the period from 2011 to 2014. By using propensity score methods, we find that attending…

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of Uncommon Schools in a turnaround setting. Uncommon was awarded a 2016 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) to support TurnNJ, a project intended to support Uncommon's whole-school turnaround efforts in Camden and Newark, New Jersey. The study…

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in Inclusive science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high schools compared to Hispanic students' mathematics achievement growth rate in traditional public schools. Twenty-eight schools, 14 of which were Texas STEM (T-STEM) academies…

This teaching tip describes an intervention used in a third-grade classroom implemented to help students pass an end-of-grade reading comprehension test. Low scores on a practice end-of-grade comprehension test prompted a re-examination of classroom reading instruction and a plan for intervention. This teaching tip describes the phases implemented…

Unquestionably, discussions on the internationalization of higher education have gained currency in the educational context (Knight, 2004; Altbach; Knight, 2007; Delgado-Marquez; Hurtado-Torres; Bondar, 2011), and language policies prove to be a crucial issue in the internationalization arena. In this regard, Paraná's government created the Paraná…

The ability to read proficiently is a comprehensive skill necessary for success at all academic levels. Students who consistently read below grade level continue to struggle throughout their school years with little chance of recovery. The administrative leaders of the Ocean View School District (a pseudonym) noticed a decline in reading scores…

Policy makers have struggled to find successful approaches to address concentrated, persistent low school achievement. While NCLB and the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program have devoted significant time and attention to turnaround, very little empirical evidence substantiates whether and how these efforts work. This study employs a comparative…

This study evaluated the efficacy of the Word Learning Strategies (WLS) supplementary program designed to develop upper-elementary students' vocabulary skills in order to improve reading comprehension. The study used a true, group-randomized, experimental design, which randomly assigned 46 4th grade classrooms (n=1324 students) from 12 districts…

Although assessment has been an integral part of the development and expansion of learning communities, much of the assessment was focused on investigating student satisfaction, retention, and graduation. This chapter provides a case study illustrating one learning community's efforts to create assessments focused on student learning.

Since 2007, nineteen Houston Independent School District (HISD) campuses have partnered with Literacy Now to offer the Reading Intervention program. The Reading Intervention program provides individualized, small group reading tutorials for at-risk students in kindergarten to second grade to create proficient readers by the end of third grade.…

This paper reviews prior research to assess the effectiveness of Title I in closing the achievement gaps of disadvantaged students vis-à-vis their non-disadvantaged counterparts. A research synthesis approach is adopted to summarize national assessments of Title I conducted between 1966 and 2011. These analyses are supplemented by the authors'…