Lawson's test was used with 66 ninth grade and 63 tenth grade students. Results show: that boys outperformed girls; a small correlation between achievement in science and mathematics and the Lawson test; and that Israeli students achieved significantly higher than United States students on the Piagetian skills measured by the test. (Author/JN)

Affirmative action and academic policy initiatives can alter only minimally the proportion of women among holders of scientific and quantitative degrees. Women's underrepresentation in such fields stems from the educational and social expectations they face throughout their schooling and their personal lives. (GC)

Investigated effects of teaching an explicit approach to problem solving on the mathematical chemistry achievement of preparatory college students (with a control group being taught dimensional analysis as its problem-solving strategy). No difference in cumulative achievement between the groups was found. Interpretations of the results obtained…

The aggregate findings of experiments with modern mathematics for the last 30 years show that there have not been many detrimental effects of "new math" either on achievement or attitude. Instead, the evidence points toward beneficial effects in terms of improvement in overall achievement and attitude. (Author/BW)

Data from the 1982 National Assessment of Educational Progress in mathematics are analyzed. Black and Hispanic students continued to score below the national level, but made greater gains than White students since the previous assessment. Students in schools with heavy minority enrollments made greater-than-average gains. (MNS)

Raising academic requirements for admission to higher education brings about higher academic standards in secondary schools. Describes the relationship between a California high school curriculum and student course selections on one hand and university admission requirements on the other. (MD)

A theoretical framework is presented that can be used as a program for determining the most effective way to teach the mathematical notion of a function and its associated concepts. Questionnaire booklets assessing specific notions of a three-dimensional function block were administered to 127 junior high school students. (Author/PN)

Third-grade students in high ability groups in mathematics achieved greater gains than students in low ability groups. The opposite results occurred in reading achievement. Possible reasons for this difference include different instructional techniques for reading and math and the effect of home environment on learning. (IS)

California's students are failing to make the grade in mathematics. A recent study released by the RAND Corporation found that California's eighth grade students ranked 43rd on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics tests. A study conducted by the California State University system found that only 55% of high school…

In response to legislation passed by the 1989 North Carolina General Assembly, the State Board of Education developed and initially implemented End-of-Grade Tests (EOG) for grades 3 through 8 in the areas of reading and mathematics effective with the 1992?93 school year. These curriculum-based multiple-choice achievement tests are specifically…

Many states and districts are moving toward more targeted compensation policies as a way to attract higher quality candidates into the teaching profession and to encourage increases in productivity among current teachers. Rather than align pay increases only to level of education and years of experience, for example, many school systems have…

The Council of the Great City Schools has prepared this fourth edition of "Beating the Odds" ("Beating the Odds IV") to give the nation another look at how inner-city schools are performing on the academic goals and standards set by the states for our children. This analysis examines student achievement in math and reading through spring 2003. It…

This paper draws on mathematics achievement data from Milwaukee middle school students to illustrate the value-added approach to estimating school performance. Value-added indicators differ from traditional attainment indicators such as average test scores in that they are designed to capture the contribution of schools to growth in student…

This study addresses three questions: First, considering the full group of students and the special education subgroup, what is the likely effect of minimum cell size and confidence interval size on school-level Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) determinations? Second, what effects do the changing minimum cell sizes have on inclusion of special…

There is a widespread view in the research and policy communities that the quality of mathematics and science instruction offered to students in the United States is low (Business-Higher Education Forum, 2005; Gonzales et al., 2004; National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, 2000; National Research Council, 2000,…