Are students who attend full-day kindergarten better prepared for future academic success than their peers who attend half-day kindergarten programs? Much of the current research on full-day kindergarten programs suggests they are. Researchers cite gains such as increased academic achievement, lower grade retention rates, improved attendance, and…

Discussed are the procedures implemented in the Orleans Parish Schools in response to the Louisiana state-mandated promotional testing program (Act 750, 1979), and concerns regarding its value. Recent findings raise fundamental questions about whether an exclusively skills-focused curriculum in the early years provides the needed grounding in…

This booklet, part of a series of reports on "hot topics" in education review the research and conventional wisdom concerning retention and promotion and includes an exploration of alternative practices that can be used to prevent failure and improve a student's chances for successful remediation. The booklet also describes how two…

This report, produced by the National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research, outlines steps that schools can take to identify at-risk students and provide the necessary support systems and relevant interventions to assist students in obtaining a high school diploma. Further, the report discusses the use of early warning data…

A study was conducted to assess the services provided by instructional aides, Chapter I teaching aides and teaching assistants, educational therapy aides (special education), and attendance aides in the District of Columbia public schools, 1982-83. Teachers and principals rated very highly the value of the paraprofessional services. Teachers…

Too many freshmen students remain mired in the ninth grade, presenting a growing problem for America's secondary schools as they struggle to improve high school completion rates. In an effort to stem the tide of high school dropouts, a southeast Texas suburban school district with five comprehensive high schools engaged in a systemic reform effort…

In 1980, the New York City Board of Education set reading standards that fourth- and seventh-grade students were required to achieve before being promoted. The Gates Program was established to provide remedial education to those students failing to meet the standards. A total of 15,705 students in the two grades failed to meet the standards in…

City-wide all-day kindergarten was instituted in the New York City public schools in the l983-84 school year. Follow-up studies of two evaluations of all-day kindergarten, a prospective study and a retrospective study, were undertaken to examine whether enrollment in all-day kindergarten (ADK) resulted in higher third-grade academic achievement…

This monograph reviews pertinent research and issues concerning grade retention in an effort to understand the implications for retention and promotion policies, especially in elementary schools. The monograph discusses 11 topics, including: (1) the historical context of retention and promotion; (2) the link between grade retention and dropouts;…

Despite advances in primary school enrollment and completion in recent years, school completion in rural areas of Guatemala is low. The problem is especially severe among indigenous female students, where only about one in eight completes primary school. In 1997, the Guatemalan government launched an ambitious program designed to assist poor…

This theme issue on acceleration of gifted students offers an Ontario (Canada) perspective on early entrance to school and grade-skipping. It begins with a history of acceleration programs and then outlines their current status, with less than 40 percent of school boards with gifted programs using some form of acceleration. It goes on to analyze…

The Evaluation System of the District of Columbia Public Schools has several purposes. It is designed to enable the school system to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and to identify characteristics of programs that seem to increase effectiveness. Also, it is designed to enable the schools to follow particular students over a period of years,…

The program entitled Prevention of Learning Disabilities: An Interdisciplinary Model, developed and operated by the Learning Disorders Unit of New York University Medical Center, has three elements: scanning, diagnosis, and intervention. Educational intervention is done primarily by Board of Education teachers and educational assistants under the…

This report provides evaluation findings of the 1981-82 Promotional Gates program, a program designed to bolster instruction and learning in order to enable New York City public school students in grades four and seven to meet city-wide performance standards required for promotion. Altogether, there are six chapters. The first chapter deals with…

Evaluation after two years of Project RAISE, a multifaceted program with seven community sponsors in the large Baltimore (Maryland) school district, indicates the effectiveness of using community adults as advocates and mentors in improving student attendance and some report card grades, but not promotion rates or standardized test scores. (SLD)