An apparently simple self-study that consisted of a longitudinal review of Grade 12 students' self-reflections from the past five years triggered a personally profound struggle about past classroom practices and surfaced a host of assumptions about teaching and learning. This research challenged the author to enact personal and professional values…

"Connecting With Others" for grades 9 through 12 is a proactive program helps high school students learn skills in self-advocacy, communication, interpersonal behaviors, and problem solving. It includes 40 learning activities that take into consideration cultural, ethnic, and gender diversity. The activities are divided into the…

This occasional paper is intended to serve as a supplement to the larger annual volume, "Monitoring the Future National Survey Results on Drug Use, 1975-2006: Volume I: Secondary School Students." This supplement contains the graphic presentation of the trends in drug use for various demographic subgroups, namely those defined by gender, college…

Understanding and preventing high school failure is a national priority. Structural strain and general deviance theories attempt to explain late high school failure. The authors tested the hypotheses that general (vs. specific) deviance and academic competence mediate the relationships between structural strain factors (gender, ethnicity, and…

In recent years, the science teaching community and curriculum developers have emphasised the importance of teaching inquiry and teaching science as inquiry. One way of developing learners' skills for planning and carrying out scientific research is by allowing them to perform independent research, guided by a teacher. It was recently discovered…

This article reports on the social participation of hard-of-hearing adolescents attending integrated school settings with itinerant teacher support, and the relationship between the students' perceptions of their social participation and their social self-concept and career decision-making. As part of a mixed methods study investigating the career…

The e-rater® system has been used by ETS for automated essay scoring since 1999. This paper describes a new version of e-rater (v.2.0) that differs from the previous one (v.1.3) with regard to the feature set and model building approach. The paper describes the new version, compares the new and previous versions in terms of performance, and…

In this paper, factors that influence academic achievement and self-concept of Year 12 students in their final year of schooling at a Catholic co-educational school in Adelaide, Australia were investigated. The study hypothesised there were differences in attitudes and academic performance due to prior schooling experiences, sex, home experiences,…

The opportunity and right to obtain a free public education provides the opportunity for all Americans to achieve success socially, financially, and professionally. The public education system has endured decades of changes as it attempts to address social, cultural, and academic issues that arise as the nation evolves. The public education system…

This handbook contains information for high school educators--teachers, curriculum coordinators, counselors, and principals--as they prepare students to take the Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE). The first section explains the purpose of the PSAE, gives timelines and test-day schedules, and shows how the PSAE is constructed. The rest…

This study examines the relationships between student literacy performance and discussion-based approaches to the development of understanding in 64 middle and high school English classrooms. A series of hierarchical linear models indicated that discussion-based approaches were significantly related to spring performance, controlling for fall…

The purpose of this study is to examine an Africentric rite of passage program's impact on African-American male high school students. It is intended to determine whether a rite of passage program will affect attendance, discipline and achievement. The study also investigates the development of a school-based Africentric program as well as its…

This unit was created as a result of a summer institute sponsored by the National K-12 Foreign Language Resource Center at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. The Center's goal is to improve student learning of foreign languages in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12). To this end, the Center provides professional support for foreign language…

This publication contains Arizona public schools' updated academic standards for high school. The contents of this document contain: (1) The Arts Standard 2006--High School; (2) Comprehensive Health Education/Physical Activity Standards 1997--Proficiency and Distinction (Grades 9-12); (3) Foreign and Native Language Standards 1997--Proficiency and…

This publication contains a sample of the 44 indicators in "The Condition of Education 2003." The indicators in this publication are numbered sequentially, rather than according to their numbers in the complete edition. The Contents page offers a cross reference between the two publications. Since 1870, the federal government has…