"Lessons Learned" is a series of publications that are a brief recounting of actual school emergencies and crises. This "Lessons Learned" issue addresses the experience of a school district where three middle school students hung themselves within a three-week timeframe. Although deaths were apparently unconnected, the school district is part of a…

This report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) presents results from the Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) in mathematics. Representative samples of between 1,800 and 4,300 fourth- and eighth-grade public school students from 18 urban districts participated in the 2009 assessment. Eleven of the districts also…

Two schools in Maryland received ARRA SIG (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act School Improvement Grants) funds to enable them to implement their turnaround efforts. This paper describes the outcomes of these two ARRA SIG recipient schools: (1) G. James Gholson Middle School; and (2) Commodore John Rodgers Elementary School. The experiences of…

"ALAS," an acronym for "Achievement for Latinos through Academic Success" that means "wings" in Spanish, is a middle school (or junior high school) intervention designed to address student, school, family, and community factors that affect dropping out. Each student is assigned a counselor who monitors attendance,…

The purpose of this annotated bibliography is to identify and summarize research on the scope, characteristics and impact of academic and social support services for students. Several reports on academic rigor have also been included to establish a context for the importance of social and academic support. The bibliography is divided into five…

The role of relational (i.e., parent, peer, teacher) support as a predictor of identity status was assessed using a sample of 635 early adolescents from an ethnically diverse, low-income school district. Identity status was measured using the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status. Multivariate regression analyses suggested that parental support…

In order to comply with the New York State Education Department's (2000) recertification mandates for teacher education programs, the reading clinic of the Master of Science in Literacy Education program at Dowling College, Oakdale, New York was moved to a high-needs school district. This school district was seriously deficient in its pass rate on…

Eight gifted and eight general-education students engaged in discussions regarding their observations of, experiences in, and recommendations for education. Six categories emerged through qualitative analysis of their conversations. These categories include: problem solving, task commitment, self-perceptions, education, communication, and…

The purpose of this study is to examine whether teachers' perceptions of educational value discontinuity are predictive of the psychological antecedents of academic performance (e.g., academic engagement and academic self-efficacy) during middle school. Educational value discontinuity is defined as the difference between teachers' actual…

This study was conducted to examine the characteristics of middle schools in which Latino students from low-income families made substantial achievement gains. Nine schools in Texas were selected where Latino students had shown strong gains in the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills. Data from onsite interviews, focus groups, and documents were…

This study examines tracking--the practice of grouping students into separate classes or courses based on their prior academic achievement--at the middle-school level, and the percentage of high-achieving students in tracked and untracked schools. It focuses on Massachusetts, a leader in "reforming" tracking, and the changes that have…

As of October 2007, 54 interdistrict magnet schools enrolling 18,928 students were operating in Connecticut. The bulk of these schools are located in the Hartford and New Haven areas--21 in the Hartford area and 17 in the New Haven area. Interdistrict magnets also serve significant numbers of students in the Waterbury region. In keeping with the…

This report describes an art-based intervention program with at-risk youth that was inspired by the Project Self-Discovery model (Milkman, Wanberg, & Robinson, 1996). Twelve middle-school students from a small city in a mid-Atlantic state participated in the program. The program goals included making art in order to empower the participants…

This article explores the emergence of La Familia Initiative, a Latino parent-organizing project at a public middle school. Motivated by their urgency to improve their children's schooling and enhance their opportunities for a better high school experience in the future, the participants organize to establish a more inclusive partnership with the…

Many teachers find themselves working with ELLs in content-area classes without the arsenal of tools and training that will help them help their students. This is a recounting of how one teacher, with the help of thoughtful observers and a commitment to teaching all of her students, worked to create strategies that improved language learners'…