White Paper 5's aim is to provide South Africa's children with a solid foundation for lifelong learning and development. Children need to be nurtured and developed holistically for them to participate efficiently in their democratic society. However, South African students continue to perform poorly in Trends in International Mathematics and…

Mathematics textbooks are a predominant resource in primary school in Greece, as well as in many other countries. The present study reports on both a content analysis of Greek mathematics textbooks with regard to the types of word problems represented in them and a quantitative analysis of children's achievement in these problems. For the purpose…

As the foreign-born population in the United States grows, the achievement of immigrant children is a pressing concern. We examined family educational involvement in early elementary school as a potential source of support for the academic success of children in immigrant families. Using a nationally representative sample, we examined rates of…

Research suggests that motivated students and those with high academic self-concepts perform better academically. Although substantial evidence supports a reciprocal relation between academic self-concept and achievement, there is less evidence supporting a similar relation between achievement goal orientations and achievement. There is also a…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is an influential and rapidly growing nationwide network of charter schools serving primarily disadvantaged minority students. Prominent elements of KIPP's educational model include high expectations for student achievement and behavior, and a substantial increase in time in school. KIPP is being watched…

This study explores the effects of counting objects and reciting numbers in preschool on 1st-grade math performance. Data on 3,125 low-income preschoolers' (4-to 5-year-olds) counting abilities (orally reciting numerals in chronological order and counting blocks) were collected during a fall session (between September 15 and December 15) and were…

Read aloud is a testing accommodation that has been studied by many researchers, and its use on K-12 assessments continues to be debated because of its potential to change the measured construct or unfairly increase test scores. This study is a summary of quantitative research on the read aloud accommodation. Previous studies contributed…

Fifty-two low performing schools were randomly assigned to receive Spatial-Temporal (ST) Math, a supplemental mathematics software and instructional program, in second/third or fourth/fifth grades or to a business-as-usual control. Analyses reveal a negligible effect of ST Math on mathematics scores, which did not differ significantly across…

This paper examines which configuration of teaching activities maximizes student performance. For this purpose a nonparametric efficiency model is formulated that accounts for (1) self-selection of students and teachers in better schools and (2) complementary teaching activities. The analysis distinguishes both individual teaching (i.e., a…

This meta-analytic study focused on the quantitative integration and synthesis of the accumulated pedagogical research in undergraduate statistics education literature. These accumulated research studies compared the academic achievement of students who had been instructed using one of the various forms of small-group learning methods to those who…

The theory of action upon which high-stakes accountability policies are based calls for systemic reforms in educational systems that will emerge by pairing incentives for improvement with extensive and targeted technical assistance (TA) to build the capacity of low-performing schools and districts. To this end, a little discussed and often…

The aim of this paper is to provide an objective overview of the impact of teacher salaries on the educational achievements of students. It is often debated about teacher salaries and improvement or jeopardizing their standard, but educational consequences that may ensue as a result of these intentions are rarely addressed. Teacher's role in…

On August 7th, 2013, the New York State Education Commissioner, John King, announced the initial results of the state's new assessment, which was designed to measure college and career readiness relative to the Common Core Learning Standards. Commissioner King noted that the proficiency rates on these assessments were significantly lower than…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of heterogeneous and homogeneous grouping on the mathematical achievement of students in third grade. Participants were 16 third graders in a self-contained classroom, assigned to either small homogeneous or heterogeneous group for math instruction for 7 weeks. Pretest-posttest scores and growth…

There are many studies that focus on factors affecting achievement. However, there is limited research that used student characteristics indices reported by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Therefore, this study investigated the predictive effects of student characteristics on mathematics performance of Turkish students.…