Background: Internationally 18% of youth are obese. Fitness testing can be used to establish fitness surveillance, which can inform policy and targeted interventions aimed at addressing obesity. The purpose of this study was to estimate the prevalence of overweight, obesity, and low fitness in Idaho school-aged youth through a pilot study.…

In partnership with three universities, the Cooper Institute, Dallas, completed the Texas Youth Fitness Study from 2008 to 2009. The study explored three key questions: (1) Is physical fitness associated with academic performance?; (2) Can physical education teachers collect high-quality information on student fitness?; and (3) Are school policies…

This paper examines changes in demographic and socioeconomic inequalities in student achievement over the school career, and the extent that these inequalities are accounted for by other influences such as, region and socioeconomic background (where appropriate), school differences and prior achievement. The data analysed are from a longitudinal…

This study duplicated the procedures used by Greene and Winters (2006) on data from the Miami-Dade school system with the advantage of an additional two year's worth of information. The results indicated that the effects of the retention policy are far from clear and arguably negative. There is considerable evidence to suggest that the apparent…