The need for teacher retention has prompted numerous American states to provide programs for training mentors. The goal of mentor training is to offer a support mechanism that will retain novice teachers and assist them in developing their teaching skills. Such a program is the Texas Beginning Educator Support System (TxBESS) which has supported…

In U.S. K-12 public education, incentive pay for educators remains firmly fixed as a high-interest policy topic and has recently become a popular reform initiative in many school systems. The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), created in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education, is at the forefront of this policy movement and has provided hundreds of…

In the last decade, the Boston Public Schools has undergone critical reforms that have been of intense interest to school leaders and policymakers throughout the country. Under the leadership of superintendent Thomas Payzant, the Boston schools implemented extensive reform strategies that yielded notable results. Fittingly, at the end of Payzant's…

During the 1986-87 academic year, 1,115 high school seniors participated in the College Now (CN) program of New York's Kingsborough Community College. A study was undertaken to assess the academic progress of the 463 students who subsequently enrolled in any City University of New York (CUNY) college during the fall of 1987. To determine…

One question has dominated the research on televised instruction for many years: how well does it compare to on-campus, face-to-face instruction? The overall results of such studies show that broadcast instruction works; either no difference is found in comparative studies or televised course students are found to have a higher achievement rate…

The evaluator finds that New Jersey GEAR UP is an outstanding example of student focused academic development, providing low income and disadvantaged middle school through high school cohorts the skills, knowledge and individual self confidence and aspiration that leads to postsecondary academic success.New Jersey GEAR UP: has met, or nearly met,…

In recent years, researchers have argued that the shortage of highly qualified teachers in poor school districts may have less to do with attracting new teachers than with retaining them. To provide the scientific evidence that will support sound decisions about teacher induction, Mathematica is examining whether high-intensity teacher induction…

National statistics show a rise in the number of beginning teachers undergoing formal induction in their first year of teaching. This report discusses the effectiveness of induction programs and resulting outcomes for beginning teacher retention, beginning teacher effectiveness, and mentor participation. The various components of induction…

This study compared the progress of 3,300 undergraduate students at Nova Southeastern University (Florida), of whom 2,410 were campus-based and 890 were distance education students. The study population consisted of all Fall Term 1993 Farquhar Center for Undergraduate Studies students, differentiating between campus-based and distance education…

The effectiveness of a mentoring program for 53 at-risk college students was investigated. The results indicated that the mentoring intervention had a positive impact on retention and grade point averages for this student cohort. (EV)

The "Ziegarnik effect," a learner's tendency to recall uncompleted tasks longer than completed ones and to remember failures more easily than successes, is applied to improving programs for the subgroup of students with emotional/behavioral disorders who show little benefit from special education interventions, and to teacher…

Evaluated academic lives of 53 women who, in 1988, entered Eureka Program, 2-year mathematics/science intervention program for women students at Brooklyn College. Program persisters were characterized by high self-esteem, better mathematics or science backgrounds, early decision on science major, higher grades in college mathematics courses,…

A study assessed the success of a University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) undergraduate bridging year in assisting underprepared business students to graduation. Subjects were 177 students from the country's black school system. Program participants had a statistically higher success rate in terms of both exam grades and graduation rate. (MSE)

Compared Professional Development School (PDS) and non-PDS graduates regarding retention in teaching, teaching effectiveness, and perceptions of professional preparation. Surveys of beginning teachers and principals found no differences in teacher retention. Principals rated PDS graduates higher in some aspects of teaching effectiveness. PDS…

This longitudinal study compares academic and social integration and intent to persist of two cohorts of freshmen (total n=132) at the American InterContinental University (England), of whom 70 successfully completed a one-term freshman orientation course and 62 did not take the course. Preliminary results suggest that the course promotes…