During conferences to decide whether or not to retain a child, usually two questions are asked. The first is, "Will retention bring success in school?" The other is, "If we retain him, will he perform better in school than if we don't retain him?" The goal of this research was to see if retained students would make enough…

In a bid to help more students read proficiently in 3rd grade--a skill considered critical to their future educational success--new laws and initiatives springing up around the country require educators to step up their efforts to identify and help struggling readers even before they enter kindergarten. It's not unusual for states or school…

The ESEA Blueprint for Reform states that teachers need "effective, ongoing, job-embedded, professional development that is targeted to student and school needs… [and] aligned with evidence of improvements in student learning." Unfortunately, the professional development approaches advocated, though sensible and compelling in theory,…

Throughout history, societal investments in children have resulted in increased prosperity for individuals, communities, states and nations. This proved to be the case for California in the 1950s and 1960s, when the state strongly supported children's futures. Despite once following this path to prosperity, California has de-prioritized children…

At a time when many states are poised to roll out new standardized tests to evaluate English-language proficiency in unprecedented depth, California is balking at carrying out a federal requirement to test the literacy of young children who are learning English. Recently, the California board of education decided to ask the U.S. Department of…

Gaps in academic achievement between students from various racial and ethnic groups and from low-income families are a cause for national concern. The advent of high stakes testing and the increased awareness of high dropout rates have rekindled the search for ways to help all children succeed in school. Many strategies to address lagging…

The purpose of the study is to examine teachers' perceptions of the Open Court language program. Open Court is published by McGraw Hill and has been approved by the "No Child Left Behind Act" as an appropriate research-based reading program. The Open Court program was adopted as part of the efforts to provide all elementary school…

Even after acting on the best available information to make a grantmaking decision, a grantmaker should seek to learn from grantees, remain adaptable to new ideas and open to unexpected learning, and willing to admit when grants do not turn out as expected. To this end, Grantmakers for Education's Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking…

Accountability for students with disabilities who receive special education services is now a result of policy requirements in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 and the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Together these pieces of federal legislation require that students participate in statewide…

The intent of No Child Left Behind is to close the achievement gap. However, in this article, the authors point out, the teachers working with the students who have the farthest to go also have the fewest resources and the poorest working conditions. Districs across the San Francisco Bay area and the nation are slashing budgets, teachers, and…

With the recently passed Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004), federal law encourages monitoring student progress and gauging responsiveness to instruction. The Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency (TOSWRF; Mather, Hammill, Allen, & Roberts, 2004) is a group-administered test that holds promise for monitoring student progress.…

This study examines six teachers' responses inside and outside of their classrooms to increasingly mixed messages about how they should develop the literacy of California's youngest and most at-risk students. While they must develop highly developed knowledge and skills to teach literacy in linguistically diverse classrooms, they must also adhere…