One hundred middle school students completed four measures of mathematics skills (involving basic facts and estimation) twice in one week. Criterion measures included school grades, standardized test scores, and teacher ratings. Correlation and regression analyses indicated the measures are reliable and possess acceptable levels of criterion…

Analysis of data from 1,067 9- to 12-year olds indicated that the most important determinants of children's reading and math achievement are their personal characteristics (such as gender, race, birth weight, number of siblings) and maternal cognitive ability. Parental work does not have a strong direct effect on achievement. (SK)

Responds to a critique of an article, "Poor School Funding, Child Poverty, and Mathematics Achievement", noting that the critique for the most part agrees with the major claims in the original article, but cautioning that the critique also makes several claims about what the original article says that are untrue, unjust and confusing. (SM)

Schools where pupils achieved standards significantly higher than would have been expected from their prior attainment were identified using value-added analyses. Identifies factors contributing to this high attainment through extended interviews with Welsh local education authorities advisors, head teachers, mathematics subject leaders, and…

Places the 1992-1996 gain in mathematics scores from Texas on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from fourth to eighth grades, asserting that the so-called miracle in Texas looks much like the median elsewhere. Texas ranks 17th among the 35 states and 2 districts with NAEP scores for the period, but Texas is no worse than most…

Examined the organizational health of a typical set of high schools in Ohio, focusing on the influence of organizational health on mathematics proficiency as defined by the percentage of twelfth-grade students who passed the Ohio Proficiency Examination in Mathematics. (EV)

Before persistent criticism stalls much-needed change in K-14 mathematics, school board members should weigh critics' objections against the strong case for reform made by leading professional organizations in mathematics and education. Traditional approaches are not yielding satisfactory student learning. Recent innovations show great promise.…

The objective of this research was to examine the comparability of constructs assessed by English and French versions of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The differences in constructs observed in our analyses indicate serious limitations of using TIMSS results for making comparisons that use overall performance in…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal school-accountability law, is widely held to have accomplished one good thing: require states to publish test-score results in math and reading for each school in grades 3 through 8 and again in grade 10. The results appear to be telling parents whether their child's school is doing a better job than the…

The author reported research findings from a study that critically examined the role of sociocultural orientations in the mathematical experiences of 2 African American students. To determine how the orientations influenced the students' mathematical success, the author used a phenomenological research strategy to examine the life histories of the…

In 3 experiments, the authors examined mathematical problem solving performance under pressure. In Experiment 1, pressure harmed performance on only unpracticed problems with heavy working memory demands. In Experiment 2, such high-demand problems were practiced until their answers were directly retrieved from memory. This eliminated choking under…

This paper discusses the problem of social exclusion, reported to be intrinsically connected to mathematical teaching from the perspective of Hegel's philosophy and Lacan's psychoanalysis. It provides a characterization of mathematics from a language viewpoint discusses the perennial demand for more mathematical achieving from the perspective of…

Algebra student achievement has become a matter for increased focus in recent years, as educators answer calls for reform, including the standards documents of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the No Child Left Behind mandates. A meta-analysis of 35 independent experimental studies shows that six teaching method categories have…

The first in a series of long-awaited studies indicates that nationally certified teachers are more effective at raising their students' reading and math scores than are teachers who apply for the credential but do not receive it. Although critics have questioned the expenditure of state and district money on National Board for Professional…

In this paper is reported the extent of textbook use by 39 middle school mathematics teachers in six states, 17 utilizing a textbook series developed with funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF-funded) and 22 using textbooks developed by commercial publishers (publisher-generated). Results indicate that both sets of teachers placed…