Children who enter kindergarten with a small vocabulary don't get taught enough words--particularly, sophisticated academic words--to close the gap, according to the latest in a series of studies by Michigan early-learning experts. The findings suggest many districts could be at a disadvantage in meeting the increased requirements for vocabulary…

An explosion in the variety and availability of cognitive-enhancing drugs, from prescriptions like Ritalin to commercial drinks like NeuroFuel, raises concerns for scientists and educators alike--not just over the potential for abuse, but also over what educators and researchers consider, and how they approach, normal achievement. Evidence is…

Running one of the nation's largest school districts typically comes with prestige and pay that draw would-be educational superstars, but also pressure and political complexity that cause them to burn out far faster than leaders of the majority of districts. A study published in the December issue of the American Educational Research Journal finds…

At a time when policymakers are demanding budget cuts and more innovative approaches to schooling, pressure is building for loosening up constraints on class sizes. After dropping for decades, average class sizes in American schools may be growing again as schools cope with budget shortfalls. Although some educators see the rising numbers as a…

The recent high-profile data-confidentiality fights in Arizona and Los Angeles have researchers worried that access to educators may become a difficult path. In the course of a decadelong federal lawsuit over English-language-learner programs in Arizona, lawyers for state schools chief Tom Horne subpoenaed the raw data from three studies…

The author reports on the U.S. Department of Education's "What Works Clearinghouse" that goes beyond "gold standard" research and sets standards for accepting other types of studies. As part of the Institute of Education Sciences' push to make research more relevant to educators, the federal clearinghouse has devised standards by which it can…