Originally published as a special issue of the "Middle School Journal," this book presents integrative curriculum as a foundational element of the middle school. By addressing the current gap in literature on curriculum integration in the middle grades, this text explores how learning can be organized around authentic concepts or…

As the education reform movement increasingly focuses on teachers and teaching, educators, policy-makers, and researchers need valid and reliable measures that can be used to evaluate individual teachers, provide guidance for improving teaching performance, and support research in ways that advance instruction and classroom dialog and practice. A…

In 2000, the California State Legislature passed the Schiff-Cardenas Crime Prevention Act, which authorized funding for county juvenile-justice programs and designated the Corrections Standards Authority (CSA) (formerly named the Board of Corrections) the administrator of funding. A 2001 California Senate bill extended the funding and changed the…

Twenty-eight students (grades six through eight) with severe learning disabilities (LD) received group or individual intervention with either induced positive or neutral moods. The positive affect condition in the individual setting increased coding task performance the most for students with LD. Subjects receiving the neutral affect induction,…

Results from the evaluation of a large-scale educational intervention designed to prevent school disruption suggest that altering the school organization is a more effective approach to delinquency prevention than treating individuals. Data for this comparison came from the evaluation of a school-based delinquency prevention program, Project…

A multiple-baseline-across-subjects study found that training in self-management reduced the inappropriate verbalizations of two middle school students with learning disabilities in a special class setting. The students also progressed more rapidly through the classroom token-economy levels system, designed to improve academic and social skills…

This report investigates the effectiveness of a metacognitive strategy in reducing anger behavior and/or aggressive acts in elementary and secondary-aged students placed in special education classes. Three separate studies were conducted with three elementary, three middle, and three high school students who were placed in special education…

This preliminary report examined the impact of W. Glasser's Reality Therapy techniques on teacher attitudes and the behavior of emotionally disturbed elementary and middle school students. A summary of Glasser's Control Theory and his recent revisions pertaining to Reality Therapy techniques is included as well as a review of the outcome…

During the past several years considerable national-level attention has been focused on the state of American public education in mathematics, science and technology. There is, among the several policy reports, substantial agreement that student achievement levels in mathematics are lower than is desirable and the opportunity to learn mathematics,…

Peers of a socially rejected seventh-grade girl were rewarded for publicly reporting positive aspects of the girl's behavior. Results indicated that positive peer reports reduced negative social interactions to near zero and increased positive interactions to above 70%. In addition, social acceptance ratings of the girl increased from…

The Middle School Study of Mainstreamed Students sought to establish a foundation for interdisciplinary research on middle school mainstreaming by merging teacher effectiveness and special education practices. The study examined teaching behaviors through macro (classroom) and micro (individual student) analyses of classroom interactions, to…