Those who explore the topic of leadership will soon find a consistent theme: Leaders must focus on and accept responsibility for results. The increasing emphasis on measuring results using state and national tests has led some school leaders to focus on raising test scores. Yet data is not what drives educators to change or improve. In this…

This study aimed to investigate the potential of the Accelerated Reader (AR) program to positively impact student scores on the English-Language Arts California Standards Test (CST). The degree of attention placed on student reading achievement and improvement in high-stakes student standardized test scores in the state of California, as well as…

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…

The 2004-2005 school year was the third year that states were required to report on the performance of students with disabilities on standards-based assessments, and the last year before states were required to test in all grades 3 through 8, and once between grades 10 and 12. This report marks the ninth in a line of National Center on Educational…

Even though Joel lived a continent away, many sixth-graders at a Title I school in California could easily identify with his life of poverty. Their empathy motivated them to launch an ambitious charitable project, which, Mr. Mitchell argues, had far greater educational value than the relentless test preparation that is standard fare in most…

Since its founding in April 1932, "The Journal of Negro Education" has published articles, reports, and reviews examining the results of intelligence and other mental tests given to African Americans. In these studies, historically social scientists contributing to the "JNE" sought to clarify what these intelligence tests were…

Randall Eberts explores the role of teachers unions in public education. He focuses particularly on how collective bargaining agreements shape the delivery of educational services, how unions affect both student achievement and the cost of providing quality education, and how they support educational reform efforts. Eberts's synthesis of the…

A total of 278 children at Time 1 (144 male and 134 female) from School Years 1 and 2 in the United Kingdom serve as participants. The children complete self-rated scales of school adjustment, and their teachers complete the Teacher Rating Scale of School Adjustment (TRSSA) twice across a 1-year period. At Time 1, children's performance on…

Since the inauguration of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in the United States, with a billion-dollar budget to induce educational reform, American schools have been under the microscope for meeting accountability standards for students. The performance pressures have intensified as the consequences for not achieving academic…

The causal effects of a voluntary summer reading intervention on children's reading activities and reading achievement were assessed in a randomized experiment involving 331 children in Grades 1-5. Children were pretested in the spring on a standardized test of reading achievement (Stanford Achievement Test, 10th ed.), on the Elementary Reading…

The persistent gap between the performance of mainstream students and racially and linguistically diverse students--for example, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans--on standardized tests may well signal problems with procedures for the development and use of standardized tests in general, and for their use with culturally…

The use of standardized testing to evaluate academic achievement is a widely debated topic. Despite controversies, standardized testing is used in all educational levels from elementary school to college entrance examinations. One of the ethnic groups particularly affected by this is the Mexican-origin population. An integrated model (individual,…

Through the ethnographic methodological tools of formal and informal interviews, observations, participation in coplanning sessions, and analysis of literacy curricula, the researchers of this study found that effective teachers are finding ways to work successfully within the current political climate influenced by No Child Left Behind and the…

In the summer of 2008, the Commonwealth of Virginia was awarded a $1.1 million grant from the U. S. Department of Education. The College Access Challenge Grant Program (CACGP) is coordinated through the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). The focus of the grant is to increase student access to postsecondary education,…

This research study was designed to determine leadership and instructional behaviors of administrators and teachers who are participants in the Alabama AP Initiative, as well as evaluate the perceptions of the AAPI with regard to student performance. The importance of this research was three-fold. First, this study provided principals, as well as…