To gain a fresh perspective as a librarian, go back into the classroom for a year. In reality, this is not possible or even desirable for librarians. Library jobs are hard to come by, and no school would hold someone's position while they ventured off into the classroom. However, a year ago, the author found herself in exactly this situation. In…

At Richardson Independent School District (RISD), 7th and 8th grade students who used TI MathForward achieved higher scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) Mathematics than similar 7th and 8th grade students who used other mathematics programs during previous years. This study found evidence that the strongest application of…

Recent studies have used increasingly complex methodologies to estimate the effect of peer characteristics--race, poverty, and ability--on student achievement. A paper by Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin using Texas state testing data has received particularly wide attention because it found a large negative effect of school percent black on black math…

Substantial uncertainty exists about the impact of school quality on the black-white achievement gap. Our results, based on both Texas Schools Project (TSP) administrative data and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS), differ noticeably from other recent analyses of the black-white achievement gap by providing strong evidence that…