The purpose of this report is to discuss the continuing difficulties school leaders and students face as they grapple with the "achievement gap" among students of different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. Several years ago, researchers at the Washington School Research Center sought to evaluate the "unique contribution of low…

What mathematics programs have been proven to help elementary students to succeed? To find out, this review summarizes evidence on three types of programs designed to improve the mathematics achievement of students in grades K-6: (1) Mathematics Curricula (MC), such as "Everyday Mathematics," "Saxon Math," and other standard…

The call for "algebra for all" is not a recent phenomenon. Concerns about the inadequacy of math (and science) preparation in America's high schools have been a steady drumbeat since the 1957 launch of Sputnik; a call for raising standards and the number of math (and science) courses required for graduation has been a part of countless…

The purpose of this quantitative relational study was to examine if an association existed between the independent variables, instructional strategies, amount of class time used to teach science, frequency of science instruction, number of courses the teacher has taken in science method or content, and the dependent variable, a school's API…

This report describes outcomes for the first year of the REACH strategic compensation program in Austin Independent School District.

Many young Indigenous Australian students continue to underachieve in Western mathematics. National test results indicate that they are two years behind their peers. Success in mathematics is important to Indigenous students as it leads to employment opportunities and can assist in identifying power differences among socio-economic classes…

The National Assessment Governing Board used a new method to set achievement level standards on the 2005 Grade 12 NAEP Math test. In this article, we summarize our independent evaluation of the process used to set these standards. The evaluation data included observations of the standard-setting meeting, observations of advisory committee meetings…

This paper presents findings from research exploring gender by item difficulty interaction on mathematics test scores in Cyprus. Data steamed from 2 longitudinal studies with 4 different age groups of primary school students. The hypothesis that boys tended to outperform girls on the hardest items and girls tended to outperform boys on the easiest…

In this article, the influence of global processes on international mathematics curricula as evidenced by item responses to 3 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) administrations (1995, 1999, and 2003) is considered. Based on Dale's (2000) argument, we set out to test 2 plausible impacts of global processes on education.…

The international and comparative education literature is not in agreement over the role of schools in student learning. The authors reexamine this debate across 25 diverse countries participating in the fourth-grade application of the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. The authors find the following: (a) In most cases,…

This study used concept maps to investigate the effect of using graphing calculators on students' understanding of the derivative at a point. The study looked for differences between the concept images that are held by students' who are using graphing calculators and the students who are not using them. Seventy one students enrolled in two…

This study investigated the achievement of pupils in the public and private primary schools in mathematics and science. The descriptive survey research design was employed to carry out this study. Four hundred and eighty (480) pupils from thirty primary schools in Ogun State, Nigeria were randomly selected for this study. From the results of this…

This study examined approximately 6,500 Florida students' reading and mathematics performance when taught by a sample of teachers who obtained their teaching credentials through the Troops to Teachers program. Results indicated that students served by Troops teachers performed about equally well in reading and achieved a small but statistically…

The participants in this study were high school Hispanic students from four geometry classes. All students were taught by the same teacher, and the duration of the experiment was for one term or six weeks. Two classes were placed in the control group and another two classes in the experimental group. In the control group, students took weekly…

A handful of studies have found evidence of a gap in academic achievement between students of high- and low-socioeconomic status (SES) families. Furthermore, some scholars argue that the gap tends to widen as students get older. Evidence is, however, inconclusive and relies mostly on limited methodological designs. Drawing on the Hamburg School…