We report on comprehensive school reform (CSR) reform in 48 schools over 6 consecutive years. In 1998, a total of 24 schools received CSR awards to improve student achievement. Control schools were carefully matched on 26 demographic variables to form a comparison group. Students' average performance, as represented in publicly available school…

The objectives of this paper are three-fold. First, a model is proposed for unifying massive amounts of conceptual and numerical information flowing from the measures of the accountability movement in Ohio and the materials that are publicly available to educators. Second, this model is translated into useable forms of information that help…

The authors were recently involved in a conversation in which a school administrator said that if they would look at the scores associated with the various academic areas of testing, they would see that the scores of the students at the school administrator's school were low in mathematics. As a response to the existence of such a condition, the…

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science studies provide country-level data for tracking changes in student achievement over time. In this paper the author has developed a method for identifying and monitoring trends in student achievement above or below any specified cut-point on these tests. The method involved the use of the Foster,…

In this study, the effects of school policies and practices on math achievement growth, as students transitioned from middle to high school, were examined while controlling for school contextual variables. A pattern of accelerated growth in mathematics achievement from grades 8 to 12 occurred, in which higher achieving students in mathematics at…

General outcome measures (GOMs) provide educators with a means to evaluate student progress toward curricular objectives. Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is one type of GOM that has a long history in the research literature with strong empirical support. With the increased emphasis on instruction linked to state standards and statewide…

For those instructors lacking artistic skills, teaching 3-dimensional calculus can be a challenge. Although some instructors spend a great deal of time working on their illustrations, trying to get them just right, students nevertheless often have a difficult time understanding some of them. To address this problem, the author has written a series…

This study examines cognitive ability profiles of children with specific age-based normative weaknesses in reading comprehension and compares those profiles to the profiles of (a) children with at least average achievement in reading comprehension, reading decoding skills, and mathematics and (b) children with low achievement across the 3…

This study explored the relationships between student achievement and student, school and home variables from the pan-Canadian assessment program administered by the Council of Ministers of Education Canada (CMEC): the School Achievement Indicators Program (SAIP) Mathematics 2001. The study also evaluated the datasets used in relationship to their…

"State Education Indicators with a Focus on Title I: 2003-04" is the ninth in a series of reports designed to provide: (1) consistent, reliable indicators to allow analysis of trends for each state over time; (2) high quality, comparable state data; and (3) indicator formats designed for use by a diverse audience. Since its inception,…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Show Me the Way to Go Home: Democrats Pare Spending in Effort to Finish Appropriations Before the End of the Year; (2) Losing…

"Algebra for everyone" has been a popular reform, though not commonly implemented and not fully evaluated. Through investigation, one might be able to determine whether courses deemed equivalent to a traditional college preparatory algebra course provide an equitable understanding of algebra concepts and skills, while controlling for…

This study used hierarchical linear regression to examine the effects of taking specific high school courses on students' ACT performance in English, Mathematics, and Science. In addition, hierarchical logistic regression was used to examine the benefits of taking specific courses on students' likelihood of meeting or exceeding the ACT College…

Educators, researchers, and policymakers have considerable interest in how the American educational system compares to those in other countries. One major index for comparison is student academic achievement. This paper links the scale of the "National Assessment of Educational Progress" ("NAEP") to the scale of the "Third International…

This document contains a narrative overview of the hierarchy, followed by a one-page graphic summary. The purpose of the hierarchy is to help agency/program officials assess which study designs are capable of producing scientifically-valid evidence on the effectiveness of a STEM education project or practice ("intervention"). More specifically,…