The joys and woes of teaching middle school children are well documented and effective middle school teachers are aware that they must address their students' social and emotional needs to ensure they succeed academically. Hispanic, white and Asian American students were interviewed on their experiences in their first year of middle school and…

The Latino student presently faces many obstacles to achieve educational equity and excellence at the high school level. This article examines academic programming for Latino middle and high school English language learners (ELLs) and provides recommendations for addressing programming that promotes biliteracy policy and programming as a valued…

The authors tested a model of the relations among adolescents' perceptions of parents', teachers', and classmates' support for, valuing of, and beliefs about their competence in math/science; adolescents' own academic self-perceptions concerning math/science; and their academic performance. The sample included 378 middle school students; 65% were…

How does one turn a class of sixth graders who are uncomfortable with writing, unfamiliar with art supplies, but good at fidgeting and bickering, into a community that achieves literary, artistic, and civic success? In the spring of 2003, Kestrel Heights teachers asked the authors to team up and help their sixth grade students create something…

The purpose of this project was to gain a better understanding of dimensions of trust and inter-relationships between those dimensions during the adolescent years. Drawing from survey data collected at the beginning and end of a semester in eighty middle- and high-school social studies classes, relationships were assessed between: social trust,…

English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities are two groups specifically targeted in NCLB for which schools must demonstrate "adequate yearly progress." However, ELLs with disabilities, a category where these two groups overlap, are not specifically mentioned in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Students with…

Purpose: Parent satisfaction with their children's school is an important issue in today's competitive educational environment characterized by school choice and government standards; however, few empirical studies address school satisfaction similarities and differences among parents from different ethnic groups. The purpose of this paper is to…

Access to important educational resources in California's middle and high schools is not equal among schools that serve different student populations. Overall, the most disadvantaged populations of middle and high school students are likely to have the least access to the resources necessary for learning. California policymakers are focusing on…

This double issue of "The Evaluation Exchange" focuses on one of the central components of complementary learning: family involvement. As outlined in the Theory & Practice article, investments in family involvement are important across ages and settings and through the co-constructed efforts and shared responsibilities of many…

This monograph represents an effort to build upon and extend beyond the literature on school mathematics as discussed in "Mathematics and Science: Critical Filters for the Future." Three significant changes in the political and educational landscape since 1985 are discussed. The first change is the introduction of mathematics standards…

For the first time in the 30-year history of the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, the organization is focusing on the nurturing of scientific talent in preschoolers and very young children. SACNAS, whose mission is to encourage Chicano/Latino and American Indian students to pursue graduate education and advanced…

Physical activity levels in girls decline dramatically during adolescence, most profoundly among minorities. To explore ethnic and racial variation in attitudes toward physical activity, semistructured interviews (n = 80) and physical activity checklists (n = 130) are conducted with African American, Hispanic, and Caucasian middle school girls in…

A main goal of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is to close gaps in test scores between different groups of students while raising achievement for all groups. Of particular concern are the persistent achievement gaps between African American, Latino, and Native American students and their white and Asian counterparts, and between students from…

More than a decade ago, no one held out much hope for the poor, immigrant children at Kennedy Middle School. Nobody thinks that now. This article presents how Kennedy Middle School transformed and beat all the odds to be a "school to watch." In many ways, Kennedy Middle School has become a model of middle-grades improvement. Test scores,…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 calls for improving test scores of minority students in third through eighth grades, making middle level schools a key venue for closing the racial gap in achievement. This study, by analyzing data on the 15,000 eighth graders who took the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics,…