Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a significant difference in academic achievement on the California Standards Tests (CSTs) in English and mathematics of students enrolled in the California Partnership Academy compared to the nonacademy population. A second purpose was to analyze the percentage of first-time passage…

Stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995) refers to the risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group in a particular performance domain. The theory assumes that performance in the stereotyped domain is most negatively affected when individuals are more highly identified with the domain in question. As federal law has increased the…

This report evaluates the construct coverage of the e-rater[R[ scoring engine. The matter of construct coverage depends on whether one defines writing skill, in terms of process or product. Originally, the e-rater engine consisted of a large set of components with a proven ability to predict human holistic scores. By organizing these capabilities…

Chicago's efforts to encourage and support National Board Certification in its public schools serve as a model for a broad community focus on teaching and learning. Thanks to a coalition of Chicago public and private organizations committed to promoting National Board Certification, the number of National Board Certified Teachers in the nation's…

Many test-based accountability systems, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), place great weight on the numbers of students who score at or above specified proficiency levels in various subjects. Accountability systems based on these metrics often provide incentives for teachers and principals to target children near current…

In this study, the researchers examined the extent to which at-risk students enrolled in traditional high schools differed in their state-mandated assessments in math and in English/Language Arts as compared to at-risk students enrolled in academic alternative education campuses (AECs). All data in this study were based on the accountability…

Education policies in the United States and other nations have established academic standards and made teachers accountable for improved standardized test scores. Because policies can have unintended effects, in this study we investigated U.S. elementary school teachers' perceptions of their state's accountability policy, particularly its effect…

Purpose: Syntactic development in adolescents was examined using a spoken discourse task and standardized testing. The primary goal was to determine whether adolescents with a history of language impairments would differ from those with a history of typical language development (TLD). This is a companion study to one that examined these same…

In this paper, we focus on the efforts of educators at nine different research sites within the United States, funded by a grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), to develop and implement innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum on the relationship of the environment and human health. The NIEHS correctly…

The authors explored the effects of teaching conceptual model-based problem-solving instruction on students' ability to solve problems in various situations. Participants were 3 4th-and 5th-grade students with or at risk for mathematics disabilities. The authors used an adapted multiple-probe across-participants design to assess the functional…

This article describes Brookline High School's new Tutorial Program, an alternative to the more traditional special education learning center. The Tutorial serves students with learning disabilities, replacing conventional special education support with academic guidance from regular classroom teachers. Tutorial students meet daily with a team of…

Mathematics is considered the universal language, but students who speak languages other than English have difficulty doing mathematics in English. For instance, because of a lack of familiarity with the problem's context, many have trouble understanding exactly what operations to perform. In the United States, approximately one in seven students…

This study examined the relationships among reading comprehension, reading self-concept, and home literacy environment (HLE) in a sample (n = 67) of fourth grade children enrolled in an urban school district. Children's reading comprehension, word reading, and verbal ability were assessed using standardized measures. Reading self-concept was…

During the last few decades, a number of quality improvement methodologies have been used by organizations. This article provides a brief review of the quality improvement literature related to academia and a case study using Six Sigma methodology to analyze students' performance in a standardized examination. We found Six Sigma to be an effective…

As the recession crimps education budgets, states are beginning to pare the number of standardized tests they give, particularly those that no longer factor into state or federal accountability decisions. At the district level, though, it's a different story. Despite pressure not to cut staffing and programs, many districts are preserving local…