This study compares Singaporean Grade 6 students' performance and strategy preference on two graphic-rich mathematics tasks, presented via pencil-and-paper and iPad modes. There were statistically significant differences between students' performances on the two tasks, one in favour of the paper mode and the other in favour of the iPad. Students…

Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program (MPCP) includes 110 schools today, having experienced both exits and entrants from its roster of 111 schools in the past decade. According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), fall 2013 voucher enrollment was 25,820 students, about double the 13,268 enrolled in 2003-2004. Thus, while the…

This article focuses on California's efforts to improve the alignment between K-12 and postsecondary schooling through the Early Assessment Program (EAP). Implemented in 2004, the EAP was designed to give high school students information about their academic preparedness for postsecondary education and to encourage teachers to teach for college…

The results from this three-year research study, conducted with over 9,000 students in eight public high schools in three states, reveal that high schools that start at 8:30 AM or later allow for more than 60% of students to obtain at least eight hours of sleep per school night. Teens getting less than eight hours of sleep reported significantly…

California is in the midst of a fundamental remaking of its assessment and accountability system that has been in place for 15 years. The state has the opportunity to play a leadership role in developing a multi-faceted assessment and accountability system that goes beyond a narrow focus on test scores and that could be a model for the nation. The…

This author explains why he believes that teacher education is under attack. The same forces that are seeking to dismantle teachers' unions and de-professionalize teaching have their sights set on university-based teacher education programs. After all, logic decrees that if teachers are to blame for educational inequality--as corporate education…

In statehouses and cities across the country, battles are raging over the direction of education policy--from the standards that will shape what students learn to how test results will be used to judge a teacher's performance. Students and teachers, in passive resistance, are refusing to take and give standardized tests. Protesters have marched to…

Using personal narratives as a form of inquiry, the author describes the learning experience of colonized subjects being educated in colonial-based school systems. The author goes on to juxtapose such experiences with the challenge of teaching racialized, culturally, and linguistically diverse students in a standardized test-driven driven school…

This quantitative study was designed to determine the impact of course gap--the time period between semesters in which students take a particular course--on student achievement in mathematics. The testing instrument used was the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), given annually to all students in Grades 3 through 11. The study…

High school administrators in the United States find students dropping out of school problematic. The federal government created the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate to provide a system of accountability to public schools and school systems, while stressing the importance of teaching research-based lessons. According to the mandate, schools and…

Looping may be defined as a teacher remaining with a group of students for multiple academic years. In this quantitative study, looping was examined as a factor on science achievement. State-wide eighth grade school level 2010 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) data were used. By responding to a mailing, school administrators…

The purposes of this mixed method study were to examine the relationship between student motivation and performance on large-scale, low- and high-stakes examinations and identify the types of incentive programs used by principals to promote test performance among high school students. The study took take place in California's Southern San Joaquin…

Background/Context: There is a deep and yawning chasm between the world of tests and testing practices as they ought to be and the actual tests and testing practices now imposed on American students, educators, and schools. That chasm of theory and practice is a function of the dominant paradigm of educational reform, with its theory of action…

This study examined differences in perceptions of content area teachers receiving literacy coaching and teachers receiving no literacy coaching regarding implementation of literacy instruction. It also examined student achievement on standardized tests relative to literacy coaching. A survey measured teachers' perceptions regarding their…

This study explores the relationships among Taiwanese high school students' scientific epistemic beliefs (SEBs), conceptions of learning science (COLS), and motivation of learning science. The questionnaire responses from 470 high school students in Taiwan were gathered for analysis to explain these relationships. The structural equation modeling…