This study describes the effect of embedding content in the Communication in Inquiry Science Project professional development model for science and language arts teachers. The model uses four components of successful professional development (content focus, active learning, extended duration, participation by teams of teachers from the same school…

President Barack Obama's Race to the Top (RTT) is a profoundly flawed educational reform plan that increases standardization, centralization, and test-based accountability in our nation's schools. Following a brief summary of the interest groups supporting the plan, who is currently participating in this race, why so many states voluntarily…

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between school decline and changes in school demographics. Using a population of 981 (N = 981) elementary schools, the authors identified samples of declining schools: Relational Decline (n = 510), Absolute Decline (n = 217), and Crossing the Line (n = 165). Latent growth models assessed…

Correlation and regression analyses were used to investigate the relationship of student mobility (as expressed by the school-level mobility rate) and first through fifth grade reading, language arts, and mathematics achievement for a statewide sample of 1062 elementary schools. Comparison data were analyzed to further investigate the relationship…

The Common Core State Standards produce a need to understand how digital tools can support literacy instruction. The purpose of this case study was to explore how a language arts teacher's integration of computers and iPads empowered and constrained her and the resulting classroom instruction. Constraining factors included (a) inadequate…

The "Ministry of Education 2013/14 Annual Service Plan Report" shares some of the significant achievements by the British Columbia ministry and government. These include the development and release of BC's Skills for Jobs Blueprint: Re-Engineering Education and Training. As well, they successfully negotiated agreements with CUPE and…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires that two accountability strategies--raising standards and public pressure through publicizing performance data--be implemented simultaneously. However, when coupled, they may produce an inappropriate consequence for public opinion. The public may misunderstand the drop in achievement that occurs when the bar is…

This study examined outcomes of using a generative multimedia environment for writing. Students in grades 9 to 12 enrolled in a special education language arts class participated in an eight-week intervention during which they wrote five stories that included pictures, audio, and text. Stories were scored using a Hawaii standards-based rubric…

If reading teachers are letting struggling readers do minimal writing in reading classes, then this practice falls under iatrogenic teaching practices, i.e., practices based on good intentions that produce unintended negative consequences. The problem arises when reading teachers believe their students' writing should take place under the purview…

Rick Beck works in cast glass; his large-scale work ranges in scale from 15 inches to around 7 feet tall. His medium--glass--makes the scale of Beck's pieces very impressive. He is probably best-known for his oversized cast glass sculptures of common hardware: nuts, bolts, screws, measuring spoons, saws, eating utensils, eye hooks, wing nuts and…

Students have fun with Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and video games. They have fun text messaging, talking on cell phones, listening to iPods. They have fun at theme parks and hanging out with friends. As their teacher the author wants to introduce students to another kind of fun. This fun can be time consuming, rigorous, and fulfilling. It's the…

"Oedipus Rex" dramatizes a collision of past, present, and future. Once Oedipus recognizes the connection between the past and his horrific present, he stabs out his eyes, ashamed at what he has wrought and unwilling to look upon his future. The 21st-century English language arts classroom is in the midst of a collision as well. Coming into…

Language arts education has experienced enormous growth and change with the advent of multimodalities in new media, digital literacies, and technologies. In this paper, Hagood uses Deleuze and Guattari's (1980/1987) theoretical work of a rhizome, rhizoanalysis, and rhizomatic cartography to view the field and examine differently converging…

The Heart and Soul Training was designed as a professional development opportunity to assist teachers in their ability to design and deliver standards-based lessons. The purpose of this retrospective, quantitative study was to address a gap in the literature as it relates to the lack of study on the Heart and Soul Training Framework. This study…

The number of public high schools implementing a semester 4 x 4 block scheduling design within the state of South Carolina has tripled since 2005. However, minimal local research has been conducted regarding the impact of block scheduling on student academic achievement. The purpose of this study was to determine if significant differences exist…