This study described and compared the reading of sixth and eighth grade students both in and out of school using a unique data set collected with the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). On average, students read forty minutes a day out of class and seventeen minutes a day in class indicating that reading is a common leisure practice for…

The use of trade books in science instruction, particularly in the elementary and middle school grades, invites scrutiny into the ways in which trade books represent science and its practitioners to learners. Forty-four trade books were examined for their explicit and implicit representations of science. The majority of the sample was comprised of…

The role of technology has an increased emphasis in the PK-12 classroom and in the preparation of teachers. The wide support for the integration of technology in day-to-day instruction is evidenced at many levels and through many organizations. The current study focused on examining and describing the experiences of faculty and interns as they…

The annual event dropout rate describes the proportion of students who leave school each year without completing a high school program. The event dropout rates for the school year 2005-2006 of 1.99% for grades 7 through 12th and 2.85% for grades 9 through 12th are consistent with the dropout rates for the past four years. The event completion rate…

More than $20 billion a year currently is being spent to construct public schools. Hundreds of billions are being spent to carry out public education. Everyone wants the best possible use of that money. Families want safe, nurturing, challenging, and effective schools for their children. Community members and policy-makers want schools to be…

The purpose of this article is to propose the use of technology integration in elementary and middle level education courses, specifically, the use of WebQuests as vehicles for the infusion of content knowledge in preservice and in-service education courses. Observation in content area teaching methods courses found that teacher candidates often…

This study is part of national research over the past seven years at the National Center on Educational Outcomes focused on identifying and validating instructional strategies for ELLs with disabilities (Shyyan, Thurlow, & Liu, 2008; Thurlow, Albus, Shyyan, Liu, & Barrera, 2004). In recent work (Barrera, Shyyan, Liu, & Thurlow, 2008),…

This study, conducted in 2005-06, identified teacher-initiated instructional strategies currently preferred by practitioners who daily work with English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities. The findings generated in this study could potentially confirm strategies identified in the authors' earlier work (Thurlow et al., 2004) through the…

This report provides a brief literature review describing a variety of best practices in middle school education.

With the enactment of the NCLB mandates, emphasis on high-stakes testing became more prevalent than ever. Some argue that high-stakes tests can be a driving force behind fundamental change in schools. Whether or not this type of test-driven change leads to school improvement is an empirical question. What we do know is that high-stake testing can…

This paper shares the results of a study on the benefits which an experiential education program has on students in the K-12 range. The study was carried out at a bilingual North American-style college preparatory school located in Colombia, South America. Research was based on experiences obtained through the coordination and implementation of an…

The ACT National Curriculum Survey is a one-of-a-kind nationwide survey of educational practices and expectations conducted by ACT every 3 to 5 years. ACT surveys thousands of middle school/junior high school, secondary, and postsecondary teachers in English/writing, reading (including English language arts and social studies teachers),…

Austin Partners in Education, a nonprofit organization, helps the community and AISD classrooms work together to ensure academic excellence and personal success for students. Academic outcomes, student engagement, and other variables for school year 2008-2009 were examined in this report.

Many school systems have so much difficulty when it comes to educating students between the ages of 12 and 15. There seems to be perennial dissatisfaction with how public schools educate these "young adolescents." The grade configurations of schools varied, but the dominant pattern was eight years of primary school followed by four years…

For several years physics faculty at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have taught physics to pre-service elementary and middle school teachers in an unusual location: the local elementary school! The participating pre-service elementary and middle school teachers are typically in their last semester and are fully immersed in their…