(Purpose) The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of classroom sound field amplification on communication in kindergarten through grade 3 classrooms. (Methodology) Sixty classrooms were involved in the study; half of the classrooms were provided with sound field amplification. The flow of communication was measured through…

Preservice and novice mathematics teachers are often guided to look toward the Internet as a toolbox of good lesson plan templates--plans tailored to prepare students for the high-stakes accountability standardized test-driven curriculum that is sweeping schooling in the United States. This fast paced, win/lose curriculum testing game leaves…

Objective: The purpose of the current study was to examine the practice validity of a new ecological assessment instrument for third through fifth graders in terms of whether it provided school staff with new knowledge about students. Method: Preassessment knowledge of school staff was compared to data obtained from 21 children and their parents…

This report summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of administering the Physical Education Assessment Report (PEAR) during its pilot year in Austin Independent School District (AISD).

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is a well established tool for formative assessment. CBM has also been used for prediction of state test scores. However, validity coefficients between math-CBM and state tests have been moderate at best (Skiba, Magnusson, Martson, and Erickson, 1986; Martson, 1989; Putnam, 1989). The purpose of the present…

Children from low-income families are more likely to have dental disease and less likely to have regular dental care. Children's dental-related illnesses are responsible for more than 880,000 lost school days each year. The lack of reliable state-level data often makes monitoring the oral health of children a challenge. By conducting oral health…

An evaluation mosaic brings together different methods and forms to present an overall picture of the impact this professional learning experience had on teachers' practices and on student achievement. Using this framework, professional developers were able to determine whether they were getting the results they wanted--and they did.

Despite a body of evidence that curriculum-based measurement of reading (R-CBM) is a valid measure of general reading achievement, some school-based professionals remain unconvinced. At the core of their argument is their experience with word callers, students who purportedly can read fluently, but do not understand what they read. No studies have…

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…

Background: This is the fourth formal report describing the efficacy of the full-day, every day kindergarten program in the St. James School Division which was initiated in one school located in an economically-disadvantaged neighborhood in the 1997-1998 school year. The success of this undertaking led to the extension of the program in 1998-1999,…

This technical report documents the procedures followed in developing student and teacher surveys to gather information about the accommodations students are accustomed to receiving and those that might be beneficial on a mathematics test delivered on the computer. It provides documentation of the technical adequacy of the survey instruments, as…

The authors conducted an experiment during the 2003-2004 school year to determine whether "On Our Way to English" ("OWE"), a product to help elementary students learn to read and speak English, was more effective in a California and a Texas school district than materials already in place. In the California study, 384 English…

The authors were asked to find out whether "On Our Way to English" ("OWE"), a supplementary, text-based product to help elementary school students learn to read and speak English was more effective in a California and a Texas school district than the materials the districts already had in place. They conducted an experiment…