"Commitment and Common Sense" tells the inside story of how Massachusetts became a national model for education. Twelve years after the passage of the state's comprehensive education reform law in 1993, Bay State student scores rose to the top of "the nation's report card" (the National Assessment of Educational Progress) in…

Researchers often presume that it is better to use administrative data from grades 4 and 5 than data from grades 6 through 8 for conducting research on teacher effectiveness that uses value-added models because (1) elementary school teachers teach all subjects to their students in self-contained classrooms and (2) classrooms are more homogenous at…

The goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of families' experiences as their children received additional support in reading activities at school within a beginning Response to Intervention (RTI) framework. Specifically, the experiences of three families from one pre-K through grade 5 elementary school in the Midwest are…

Educators, administrators, and policymakers focus much attention on closing the achievement gap, and various approaches have been suggested. The present study focuses on one approach being suggested: student-teacher ethnic matching. The study focused on the long-term contributions of African American ethnic matching to mathematical test scores of…

This multiple case study relied upon a socioecological framework and the lens of resilience to investigate practices and processes that are correlated with higher academic achievement among African American, Hispanic, and English language learners. Utilizing quantitative measures for sample selection of 10 higher-performing and 5…

The research looks at the phenomenon of composite classes as experienced by the Murezi community. To gather the required data and to have an in-depth understanding of the Murezi school experience, the case study was employed and the questionnaire, interview and on-site observations were employed as data gathering instruments. The three were used…

Using a causal-comparative research design, this study investigated the effectiveness of Differentiated Instruction Support Inclusion Services on fifth grade regular education and gifted students' Reading/Language Arts achievement. The study analyzed and compared the achievement of the regular education students who received no inclusion support…

This report highlights the ongoing discussions between the believers of "online learning" vs. the "not enough proven research" for K-8 cyber schooling. Discussing successful processes and operations in states around the country, the author focuses on Maryland and, in particular, Baltimore schools, and reports that very little…

The authors propose a strategy for studying the effects of time-varying instructional treatments on repeatedly observed student achievement. This approach responds to three challenges: (a) The yearly reallocation of students to classrooms and teachers creates a complex structure of dependence among responses; (b) a child's learning outcome under a…

Renewed interest in the education of young adolescents has given credence to the "elemiddle" school approach to teaching and learning, which was first documented 15 years ago when David Hough coined the term. Yet much bias, misunderstanding and misinterpretation accompanies the most recent phenomenon compelling schools nationwide to…

The purpose of this study was to compare the academic achievement of 543 urban 4th- (n=291) and 8th- (n=252) grade students who attended Montessori or traditional education programs. The majority of the sample consisted of minority students (approximately 53 percent), and was considered low income (approximately 67 percent). Students who attended…

The International Commission on the Teaching of Mathematics created by the International Congress of Mathematics at Rome, Italy, in 1908, submitted a large body of reports to the congress at Cambridge, England, in 1912. Those for the United States have been published as bulletins for the Bureau of Education. The material in this bulletin shows…

One of the most difficult problems of modern school practice is how to prevent overcrowding the curriculum, breaking up the school day into small fragments of time devoted to disconnected tasks, and dissipating the energies of the children to such an extent that the process of education is hindered rather than helped by the attempts to enrich and…

The study reported here was begun in 1955 by a group of five staff members in the Elementary Schools Section, U. S. Office of Education. The purpose was to find out and report: (1) what research says about children a 9,10, and 11; (2) what educators say about today's children in grades 4, 5, and 6, and (3) some good educational practices for…