Low high school graduation rates continue to be a challenge in American public education. The pressure to meet the demands of adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the No Child Left behind Act of 2001 has led to an achievement gap in student performance between science and other core subjects, namely English, math, and social studies, on the…

This study examines the use of student learning polls as indicators of student perceptions for tutoring services for the purpose of continuous improvement planning. As an integral part of the educational reform known as No Child Left Behind, continuous improvement plans must be developed by leadership teams when schools fail to make adequate…

During President Barack Obama's first two years in office, the administration's signature education initiative has been the Race to the Top (RTT) fund, a small part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that was passed to stimulate the nation's ailing economy. While celebrations and criticisms of RTT abound, serious attempts to…

In emergency management, scientific models are widely used for running hazard simulations and estimating losses often in support of planning and mitigation efforts. This work expands utility of the scientific model into the response phase of emergency management. The focus is on the common operating picture as it gives context to emergency…

How government spends money, and who benefits, reveals our priorities. How, then, do children fare in the competition for public resources? This report looks at public investments across age groups, from birth through the elementary years. Key findings show that spending more than doubles per capita between the infant and toddler years and the…

Teachers are the most important factor in whether a student achieves in the classroom, so closing the achievement gap means improving the effectiveness of our teachers and their principals. But right now, no one really knows how effective our teachers are. The Obama administration recognizes that many states' evaluation systems are broken, and the…

This article defines research centers as associative enterprises for solving scholarly and societal problems that cannot be adequately addressed by individuals. The authors identify more than fifty research centers in rhetoric and writing, past and present, and argue that they function as change agents by emphasizing collaboration and conducting…

Ravenswood (WV) Middle School is located on a quiet residential street, adjacent to the high school, the town library, and a community park in the small town of historic Ravenswood, West Virginia. The unassuming exterior of the building belies the school's record of continued academic growth and achievement and the warm, caring environment that it…

After the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, thousands of families across the U.S. breathed a sigh of relief at the White House's reassurance: "Reform will eliminate health insurance discrimination against people with disabilities." However, the actual language of the law and the proposed implementation timeline of the…

Context: This study addresses recent changes in professional development policy, practice, and theory, in which professional development has increasingly become continual, collaborative, and school based. We consider both traditional notions of structure and content as well as context in developing a more complete understanding of professional…

Preschools provide a promising setting in which to conduct preventive interventions for childhood problems, but classroom programs can only be effective if teachers are willing and able to implement them. This study is one of the first to investigate predictors of the frequency of teacher participation in a classroom-based, randomized controlled…

As accountability reform intensifies, urban school districts strive to meet No Child Left Behind mandates to avoid severe penalties. This study investigated the resurgence of homogeneous grouping methods as a means to increase reading achievement and meet English Language Arts Adequate Yearly Progress requirements. Specifically, this study…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

The Federal Pell Grant Program, which provides need-based grants to millions of college students, is the federal government's largest education expenditure. It consumes over half the Department of Education's annual budget and in 2010-2011 cost taxpayers about $36 billion per year. Although the program started out as a way to provide college…

This study looks at attendance in the early grades of elementary school. In particular, the authors focus on students enrolled in Pre-Kindergarten (PreK) and Kindergarten (K). They follow these young students over several years to determine their pattern of chronic absence (CA), defined as missing more than one-ninth of days enrolled, and their…