Across the country states and school districts need to improve the mathematics performance of students with disabilities. This population of students increased since the 1970s, and there have also been changes in education expectations and accountability under the requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Acts of 1997 and 2004…

This technical brief examines whether, after two years of implementation, schools in Massachusetts using quarterly benchmark exams aligned with state standards in middle school mathematics showed greater gains in student achievement than those not doing so. A quasi-experimental design, using covariate matching and comparative interrupted…

International educational comparisons are relatively recent phenomena and have long been the source of international debate. Since the formation of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in the 1950s, assessments have grown increasingly more valid and reliable. TIMSS is an exemplary attempt at…

This study used a randomized field trial design to evaluate the efficacy of a research-based model for scaling up an intervention focused on preschool mathematics. Although the successes of research-based educational practices have been documented, equally well known is the paucity of successful efforts to bring these practices to scale. The same…

This study examined average-, high- and top-performing US fourth graders' rational number problem solving and their understanding of rational number representations. In phase one, all students completed a written test designed to tap their skills for multiplication, division and rational number word-problem solving. In phase two, a subset of…

This paper reports on an exploratory study of the mathematical beliefs of a group of ninth and tenth grade students at a large, college preparatory, private school in the Southeastern United States. These beliefs were revealed using contemporary metaphor theory. A thematic analysis of the students' metaphors for mathematics indicated that students…

Equity is a concept that is often measured in terms of test scores, with educators looking for equal test scores among students of different cultural groups, social classes or sexes. In this article the term "relational equity" is proposed to describe equitable relations in classrooms; relations that include students treating each other…

Analysis of the cost-effectiveness of 29 Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) models suggests that all 29 models are less cost-effective than an alternative approach for raising student achievement, involving rapid assessment systems that test students 2 to 5 times per week in math and reading and provide rapid feedback of the results to students and…

This study examines family and motivation effects on student mathematics achievement across 41 countries. The Rasch estimates of PISA mathematics test scores and questionnaire responses of 107,975 15-year-old students were analyzed via multilevel analyses. Students scored higher in richer or more egalitarian countries; when living with two…

Vavoso and Apanay discuss revitalizing the Workshop Cycle for the purpose of creating the intellectual environment necessary in teaching for mathematical understanding, which lies at the intersection of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Process and Content Standards. (Contains 2 tables, 3 figures, and a bibliography.)

In this article, changes in "Mathematics for Informatics" at the Faculty of Organisation and Informatics in the University of Zagreb are described, and correlated with students pass rates. Students at the Faculty work in an interdisciplinary field, studying Informatics within a business context. The main reason for introducing the…

This study explores two approaches to directly measuring the quality of instruction: teachers' assignments with student work and focused lesson observations. The technical quality and potential feasibility of these approaches for measuring instruction in large numbers of classrooms are compared within two different content areas (reading…

Despite a well established body of international literature describing the effect of test anxiety on student performance in a range of assessments, there has been little work conducted on samples of students from the UK. The purpose of this exploratory study is two-fold. First, to establish the relationship between test anxiety and assessment…

Given that previous findings on the social distribution of the effects of small classes have been mixed and inconclusive, in the present study I attempted to shed light on the mechanism through which small classes affect the achievement of low- and high-achieving students. I used data from a 4-year, large-scale, randomized experiment (project…

This article reports a cross-case analysis examining the impact of class and race upon two young adolescent girls' experiences with school mathematics. Based on repeated in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation of their mathematics classroom, the researcher portrays contrasting pictures of two high-achieving, young, adolescent girls who…