This guide is a starting point for parents, teachers, health professionals, law enforcement personnel, alcohol retailers, policymakers, and others who are concerned with the well-being of children. It describes three basic prevention strategies and ways they can be applied in the home, the school, and the community, and offers effective,…

This "Report Card to the Public" is published in accordance with Alaska Statute 14.03.120 for the school year 2011-2012. Under state law, each school district is required to report information about its plans and performance to its community. This report includes a statewide summary of performance results. It reports the status of public…

The No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to begin testing new English Learners (EL) in English language arts within three years after they enter school and holds schools accountable for their performance on these exams. Yet very little empirical work has examined exactly how long it takes EL students to become proficient in English and how…

Two major pieces of legislation, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) (2001) mandate that students with disabilities be placed in the Least Restrictive Environment and have access to the general education curriculum. To provide access to the general education curriculum, inclusion in general…

The "No Child Left Behind" legislation requires states to classify schools based on students meeting the state's academic standards. A combination of factors, including scores on state specific tests and nationally normed tests, can result in a school being awarded a low classification or a high classification. In the authors' state,…

This mixed-methodological study examined changes in perceptions of teachers (n = 70) engaged in a two-year professional development program designed to meet the unique needs of English Language Learners (ELL), and changes in ELL students' (n = 235) math and reading achievement scores. The study was conducted in two urban middle schools in Kansas…

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…

In 2000, Cook, Murphy, and Hunt published a multilevel study of Chicago inner-city schools in order to evaluate James Comer's School Development Program (SDP). One main finding was that SDP reduced the rate of change and final posttest mean when delinquency was assessed annually between Grades 5 and 8 using a self-report measure of acting out. The…

The guiding principles and procedures for pupil assessment in Portuguese compulsory education were established by the Implementing Order No. 1/2005, 5th January, with amendments introduced by the Implementing Orders No. 18/2006, 14th March and No. 5/2007, 10th January, and apply to the learning objectives and competencies defined for the various…

This case study seeks to explain why a Yup'ik middle schooler, Nora, from a remote Alaskan village, was differently constructed as a math learner by her 6th- and 7th-grade math teachers. When a culturally relevant curriculum was used in 6th grade, Nora had a greater opportunity for leadership, ownership of knowledge, collaborative problem solving,…

Under the Florida A+ Accountability Program, Florida's schools are graded based on student performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Previously, when schools would earn their second failing grade within four years, students assigned to these schools were offered school vouchers which parents and guardians could use to transfer…

We designed a professional development (PD) program to increase the teacher efficacy of mathematics teachers. We randomly assigned 106 Grade 6 teachers in 1 school district to treatment and control conditions in a delayed-treatment design. The PD explicitly addressed 4 sources of teacher-efficacy information identified in social-cognition theory…

This case study of one middle school focuses on improving teachers' skills in data-driven decision making through analysis of student work and their own professional practice. The expectation that schools will make adequate yearly progress has pushed evaluation practice down to the teacher level, where teachers are asked to analyze and…

Poor reading ability is associated with numerous negative consequences. School psychologists should provide teachers with resources and support to improve student reading ability and prevent these negative outcomes. This paper offers a guide for school psychologists to use in the consultation process when working with teachers to address students'…

This general achievement trends profile includes information that the Center on Education Policy (CEP) and the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO) obtained from states from fall 2008 through April 2009. Included herein are: (1) Bullet points summarizing key findings about achievement trends in that state at three performance…