For a decade, at least since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the nation's foremost education goal has been to erase achievement "gaps" in which African American, Latino, and low-income students dramatically lag behind their peers. This emphasis has enjoyed broad support through the Bush and Obama administrations, and from major…

In January, 2010, Iowa Kids Count produced a special report that showed long-term trends in Iowa student reading and mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the only source for comparative state information on student achievement. The January report showed a decline in Iowa's ranking since 1992, when the first…

The purpose of this study was to re-examine the consensus and difference in American students' understanding of national history, on which there were divergent research results. With three sets of questions that examined students' perspectives of the collective memory, historical significance, and credibility of historical sources, we found that…

This quantitative study examined science interest and achievement of middle school minority females in both traditional science classes and Problem-based Learning (PBL) science classes. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a significant difference between traditional teaching and the PBL teaching method. The researcher also…

The purpose of this study was to examine constructivist-based algebra lessons and a cooperative construct to address the achievement gap between White (non-Hispanic) and Mexican American 8th grade students at a southern California middle school. The lessons were designed to facilitate social interdependence which promoted peer-to-peer interaction…

The current study examined awareness of gender and ethnic bias and gender and ethnic identity in 350 African American, White/European American, and Latino/Hispanic students (M[subscript age] = 11.21 years, SD = 1.59) from the 4th, 6th, and 8th grades of diverse middle and elementary schools. The study collected (a) qualitative data to best capture…

Researchers have found that self-concept in students fluctuates during times of change, such as the physical transition between elementary school and junior high. Since Catholic school students typically do not have the physical transition or social network changes in junior high, it was hypothesized that their self-concepts would not fluctuate.…

Over nearly three decades, the Public Policy Forum has collected and analyzed education data to report on the demographics, academic performance, and finances of public schools and districts in southeast Wisconsin. This 29th annual public schools report continues that tradition with updated analyses of new data and trends to shed light on the…

A recent review of data provided by the New York City Department of Education reveals that African-American charter school students were 60 percent more likely than their public school counterparts to earn a seat in one of New York City's specialized high schools in 2009. For Hispanics, the rate of acceptance was twice as high for charter school…

This study collected data from 422 seventh- and eighth-grade adolescents in 2005 and 391 seventh- and eighth-grade adolescents in 2006 in a medium-sized Midwestern community as part of a larger longitudinal study. The 2006 data collection occurred at the height of the national debate about immigration policy and practice. The fortuitous timing of…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between Collective Teacher Efficacy and minority student achievement gap over and above that explained by socioeconomics, school size, and prior achievement gaps for Black and Hispanic students with White students. Forty-seven Virginia middle schools were selected to participate in the…

Framed within the growing population of English language learners (ELLs) in urban schools, this study examined the learning experiences of bilingual Latino/a students who were taught to serve as on-site interpreters at their inner-city K-8 school in California. Participants in the Young Interpreters Program had significantly higher scores in…

In this article, the author examined the AG by noting that the NAEP reported math scores among 17-year-olds is upwardly biased when compared with the scores of this same cohort 4 years earlier when they were 13 years old. It is upwardly biased because an important event happens over the 4-year period between 8th and 12th grade--a large percentage…

Last year, Hispanic and African American high school graduates met ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks in English, reading, mathematics, and science at substantially lower rates than did Asian and White graduates. For example, the rate of White graduates who were college ready in English (77%) was twice that of their African American peers (35%).…

Nationally, millions of students in grades 7-12 are at risk of dropping out of high school because of low literacy skills, poor attendance, and class failure. The absence of a college- and career-ready education for these students is a civil rights and social justice issue that the federal government cannot ignore. Unfortunately, many of these…