The current study, a causal comparative quantitative study, examined the relationship between content-based accelerated instruction and the growth of students identified as gifted and talented who enrolled in the participating district's accelerated advanced math class, and how acceleration affected students' growth based on socioeconomic status.…

Background: Parent-aimed guidance on the topic of processed foods may help limit highly processed foods in children's diets, but little is known about parent understanding and perceptions of these products. Aims: To determine how parent perceptions of processing align with processing classification systems used in research, and to identify…

Word Generation (WG) is a research-based vocabulary program for middle school students designed to teach words through language arts, math, science, and social studies classes. The program consists of weekly units that introduce 5 high-utility target words through brief passages designed to spark active examination and discussion of contemporary…

New York mayor Bill de Blasio entered office in January 2014, promising to "take dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities … [and] put an end to economic and social inequalities that threaten to unravel the city we love." The Manhattan Institute's "Poverty and Progress in New York" series tracks the effects of Mayor de Blasio's…

Prior research suggests that summer learning loss among low-income children contributes to income-based gaps in achievement and educational attainment. We present results from a randomized experiment of a summer mathematics program conducted in a large, high-poverty urban public school district. Children in the third to ninth grade (N = 263) were…

The Kauffman School is a public charter school that serves students from low-income neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri. This paper used a matched comparison group design to estimate the impacts of the Kauffman School on student achievement, attendance, and suspensions. We found that the Kauffman School had positive and statistically…

This longitudinal study examined the outcomes of Project Excite on reducing minority students' achievement gaps in STEM over 14 years. Project Excite was designed to provide intensive supplemental enrichment and accelerated programming for high-potential, underrepresented minority students from third through eighth grades to better prepare them…

Background: School-based social-emotional and character development (SECD) programs can influence not only SECD but also academic-related outcomes. This study evaluated the impact of one SECD program, Positive Action (PA), on educational outcomes among low-income, urban youth. Methods: The longitudinal study used a matched-pair, cluster-randomized…

Educators and policymakers have set a goal that all students graduate from high school ready for college and careers. A substantial body of research supports the idea that the path to college and career readiness begins well before middle and high school. In an earlier policy report, ACT examined the percentage of academically far off track…

"Do The Math," a 1-hour, live, educational television program provides on-air instruction in general math, geometry, pre-algebra and algebra to a target audience of 4th-12th graders. A team of math teachers also provides tutoring to students who call in for help with homework. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether watching…

The issue of underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers is especially important to the future of the United States in current times when STEM careers play an increasingly important role in the global economy (Toulmin & Groome, 2007; United States Department of Labor, 2007). The pool of…

In 2005, a group of concerned parents who had arrived in the United States as refugees from war-torn Somalia received approval from their local school district to establish the Iftin Charter School (ICS). The K-8 school continues to engender hope and intellectual strength in its students and parents. ICS finds itself uniquely equipped to meet the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a Web-based mathematics program, Education Program for Gifted Youth (EPGY) Stanford Math, on mathematics achievement of fourth- through eighth-grade students in a metropolitan school district. Few studies have researched a Web-based mathematics program that provides an individualized,…

In this quasi-experimental design study, I investigated the impact of a current summer literacy approach on writing performance and writer self-perception of urban Housing Authority children. In addition, current campers and former CampUs Scholarship recipients provided feedback about personal experiences as well as shared the potential impact of…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore why some low-income minority students were academically successful in school using a three-tiered approach to research including individual student interviews, classroom observations, and photographs and follow up interviews on photographs to identify factors contributing to academic…