Despite the importance of computer science education and computational thinking, there have been limited examples of computer science education at K-12 classrooms that authentically represents the work of computer scientists, especially programming. One reason is the lack of a measurable definition of computational thinking and a programming…

This study examined contributions of academic ability tracking, disciplinary attitudes (science anxiety and self-efficacy), and discipline-specific literacy skills (science and academic vocabulary knowledge) to students' science achievement in a sample of 104 Grade 8 students (78% current or former English learners [ELs]) enrolled in high- versus…

Austin ISD is one of 21 US urban school districts participating in the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA). AISD students consistently perform well on the 4th and 8th grade reading and math assessments. This supplemental report summarizes 2015 results. A separate research brief also was…

Many US education reform efforts focus on student performance in large, urban school districts. The National Assessment of Educational Progress's Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) program provides data on student achievement in these districts, but differences in student characteristics complicate comparisons of district performance. I use…

Austin ISD is one of 21 US urban school districts participating in the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA). AISD students consistently perform well on the 4th and 8th grade reading and math assessments. This research brief summarizes 2015 results. A separate supplemental report also was…

Balanced literacy has been proposed as a compromise or middle ground between philosophical approaches to reading instruction that stress teaching of word recognition and those that stress construction of meaning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the READ 180 balanced literacy supplementary instruction program on…

Evidence that teachers' short-term instructional effects persist over time and predict substantial long-run impacts on students' lives provides much of the impetus for a wide range of educational reforms focused on identifying and responding to differences in teachers' value-added to student learning. However, relatively little research has…

Using secondary analysis, the author examined outcomes of academics, attendance, and discipline problems for 999 students placed in disciplinary alternative education programs (DAEPs) during the 2005-06 academic school year utilizing the Boys Town Educational Model as the intervention. Surprisingly, academic averages decreased, average attendance…

The implementation of education policies requiring the turnaround of persistently low-achieving schools has demanded reforms that will not only improve achievement, but also deliver results in a short period of time. To meet such demands, Jefferson County Public Schools educators implemented Project Proficiency (PP). Results from…

The academic underperformance of African American students continues to limit their academic, career, and life opportunities. Consequently, many urban school districts have implemented single-sex instructional programs in an effort to better address the schooling needs of African Americans. This study's purpose was to evaluate to what extent the…

This two-part investigation (a) assessed the impact of the Jaime Escalante Math Program (JEMP), a structured summer mathematics intervention program, on the math achievement of urban middle school students, (b) identified the characteristics of the program that the administrators and teachers perceived to contribute to student achievement, and (c)…

Project-Based Learning (PBL) serves as an instructional approach to classroom teaching and learning that is designed to engage students in the investigation of real-world problems to create meaningful and relevant educational experiences. The causal-comparative study compared 7th and 8th students who had utilized the PBL with a comparison group in…

Although youth-led programs (YLP) have been successful in many areas of public health, youth leadership is rarely used in the prevention of peer aggression. A YLP to reduce bullying, sexual harassment, and dating aggression was compared experimentally with the board-mandated usual practice (UP). Four middle schools in an urban Canadian school…

California has the largest share of the English Language Learner (ELL) student population in the U.S., and it continues to grow. English Language Learners are the fastest growing group in the public school population and they are underachieving. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal changes in the performance of English…

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…