The Obama administration's education legacy could hinge on the success of the Race to the Top (RTT) program. Now more than ever, with the Department of Education's recent announcement of the round-two winners, RTT has received its share of praise and criticism. The praise stems from RTT's success in fostering policy discussions about the…

The current fiscal climate in California and the country has had a tremendous impact on every facet of society. Education has experienced budget reductions that have impacted every aspect of serving students and their families. Research provides educators with evidence-based strategies that have shown to improve student achievement. This study…

This study sought to ascertain the specific assessment strategies used by middle- and high-school choral directors in Georgia to evaluate sight-singing. Data was further gathered to determine which assessment practices choral directors considered to be the most effective. Although there had been previous studies that attempted to determine the…

This study used the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) standards for staff development as a framework for measuring specific aspects of the enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies (eMINTS) educational technology professional development program, as perceived by eMINTS teachers. The Technology Integration Cycle…

This book raises provocative questions about the efficacy, viability, and sustainability of professional learning communities given the current political and structural realities of public schools. The culmination of six years of research in five states, it explores real-world efforts to establish learning communities as a strategy for…

The Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education, Commission on Accreditation (MACTE) is a national programmatic and institutional accreditor. The agency currently has 68 freestanding institutions and 13 programs located throughout the United States. The agency's recognition enables its institutions to establish eligibility to receive…

This study examined the correlation between the grades a student earns in his or her classroom and the scores that each student earned on the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests in Writing, Math, and Science. The study also examined the mean scores of varying sub-groups to determine if certain sub-groups demonstrated higher means, dependent…

In the last two decades, travel and tourism has grown into an increasingly important industry. More recently, travelers have sought out activities and attractions that focus on authenticity, heritage and uniqueness, and rural communities have begun to realize that their communities and attractions match well with what visitors are demanding.…

This study examined the perceptions of secondary IEP team members (i.e., administrators, special education teachers, and general education teachers) from one Virginia school district regarding the diploma decision-making process for students with disabilities. Using a qualitative, multi-case approach incorporating three phases of analysis (i.e.,…

The study examined how the English reading performance of predominantly Spanish-speaking students in transitional bilingual education compared with the performance of predominantly Spanish-speaking students in structured English immersion. The study analyzed data on three cohorts of students in six schools in Los Angeles; Denver; Albuquerque; St.…

As Congress considers reauthorization of the laws which provide funding for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), there is interest in understanding what accounts for recent trends in child care subsidy receipt among eligible families and what research says about subsidies' effects on parents' ability to obtain and maintain employment. The…

A notable limitation in the extant and emerging literature on faculty-mentored undergraduate research is that the focus is often on the benefits to students' with little or no examination of the benefits and challenges to participating faculty. Using the cognitive apprenticeship model as a theoretical framework, descriptions of the benefits and…

The Nation's Report Card[TM] informs the public about the academic achievement of elementary and secondary students in the United States. Report cards communicate the findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a continuing and nationally representative measure of achievement in various subjects over time. Results from the…

This study examined construct validity of three commonly used clerkship performance assessments: preceptors' evaluations, OSCE-type clinical performance measures, and the NBME [National Board of Medical Examiners] medicine subject examination. Six hundred and eighty-six students taking the inpatient medicine clerkship from 2003 to 2007…

The need for well-trained school counselors is mandated both because of the types of 21st Century needs our school children bring to counselors as well as the numbers of school children that are on the case load of the majority of school counselors across the nation (Snow, et al., 2008; Boes, Snow, & Chibbaro, 2009). Developing similar curricula…