This "Informed Educator" draws content from several reports as well as a PowerPoint presentation that describe findings from a study conducted by EdSource and its research partners from Stanford University and the American Institutes for Research. The project--Gaining Ground in the Middle Grades: Why Some Schools Do Better--focused on…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the length of years of preschool attendance on the academic achievement and retention of third and fourth grade students in high and low achieving schools. The study consisted of the analysis of secondary data, i.e., mathematics and language arts literacy scores as the measurement of academic…

National testing standards have increased pressure on school personnel to identify and implement instructional practices that facilitate the academic achievement of at-risk students. No Child Left Behind legislation currently mandates that reading programs at the middle school level receiving federal funding must use scientifically validated…

In this investigation, 55 of the 72 Suffolk County public schools were analyzed using archival data gleaned from the New York State Education Department's BEDS report for the years 2000 to 2005. Three primary research questions were used to determine if the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 had an impact on four ethnic groups, wealth of different…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the academic impacts of the Twenty-First Century Community Learning Centers on students who participated in this program. The following research questions guided the study: (a) are there significant differences between the Criterion Reference Competency Test English Language Arts scores of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the policy implications allowing administrators to exempt a student from required arts instruction if the student obtained unsatisfactory scores on the high-stake state mandated tests in English and mathematics. This study examined English language arts and math test scores for 37,222 eighth grade students…

Middle grades teachers should create meaningful learning activities involving stimulating literature and interesting composition prompts. This article describes a unit in which eighth graders read short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Using multiple learning and teaching approaches, they expanded their vocabularies, responded artistically to "The…

Recent work in middle and high school classrooms throughout the past year suggests two key roles in which students can use digital images in the language arts classroom: as readers and as writers. These emerging capabilities can allow students and teachers to envision, understand, and communicate meaning. Here we offer three brief illustrations…

This study has tackled the thorny problem of closing the Student Achievement Gap (SAG) in California's elementary schools. To address that problem, an "Integrated" form of educational leadership called Transformational Instructional Leadership (TIL), a form grounded in "best practices" of Transformational and Instructional…

The purpose of this study was to discover and compare perceptions of three different groups of Indiana elementary educators concerning the importance of areas of the principal's literacy knowledge base, as well as responsibility for and use of this knowledge by principals to adequately support effective research-based literacy instruction. The…

The standards in this document are for Hospitality and Tourism programs and are designed to clearly state what the student should know and be able to do upon completion of an advanced high-school program. Minimally, the student will complete a two-year program to achieve all standards. The Hospitality and Tourism Standards Writing Team followed…

The present study investigated Oral Reading Fluency and its ability to predict academic achievement in language arts and mathematics on 6,484 first through fourth grade students. Student, teacher, and school information from the 2006-2007 academic school year was collected from databases maintained by Salt Lake City School District. The…

The focus of this quantitative study was to identify third grade ISTEP+ data from the top 10 increasing and declining enrollment public school districts in the state of Indiana to determine if communities experiencing high percentages of increasing or declining enrollments have significantly different achievement in language arts. This data was…

Students entering school with little knowledge of English do not have the foundation in place to develop reading skills. This lack of foundation puts English Learners at a disadvantage that they struggle to overcome. The purpose of the quantitative study was twofold: (a) to determine whether measures of phonemic awareness are predictive of end of…

The K-12 Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent a major advance in standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts. They are grounded in evidence about what it takes for high school graduates to be ready for college and careers and build on the finest state and international standards. The Common Core State Standards offer an…