This paper examines the long-term effect of enrollment in center- or school-based care programs on the academic performance of language minority students in the USA. The study applies a longitudinal multilevel analysis to a nationally representative database, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K). Of particular interest are the…

In this article, the author explores several definitions of reading and evaluating educational research texts without finding deep private meanings or developing objective, scientific, and instrumental norms for evaluating quality of educational research studies. Among these descriptions, the author emphasizes Gadamer's weak poststructural model…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 includes requirements for annual state science assessments in elementary, middle, and high school. These assessments must be aligned with state academic content and achievement standards and involve multiple measures, including measures of higher-order thinking and understanding. This article addresses the…

The role of curriculum-based data in educational decision making, particularly with regard to the assistive technology (AT) consideration process, has become increasingly important. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and other demands for school accountability require teachers to be more thoughtful about all decisions regarding students…

A dramatic shift in the past fifteen years in teacher education has been the move toward people beginning their teacher preparation later in life and in their academic careers. In response, the number of alternative certification programs has increased to reduce teacher shortages in critical content areas such as mathematics, science, bilingual…

This book examines the changes in educational policy in the U.S. and Britain over the last twenty-five years. The author contends that education in the States and Britain has been significantly transformed, through efforts to create curricular standards, increased emphasis on accountability measured by standardized tests, and efforts to introduce…

The research reported in this paper is focused directly on assessing the validity of the "Teaching Knowledge about Reading and Reading Practices" (TKRRP) assessment. Following the recommendations of the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (APA/AERA, 1999), the authors see validation as a process of constructing an…

This paper reviews New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's education reform agenda, "Children first", in the light of organizational theory. I argue that this reform agenda reflects both coercive and mimetic isomorphism, as Bloomberg uses mayoral control to apply business concepts and practices to New York City's public school system.…

In this theoretical dissertation my aim is to research the academic literature in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), compare it to the life experiences of past and/or present students, colleagues, children and myself to reflect and summarize my learning in the form of a conceptual framework that I have named, "Framework for…

The research study examined whether a difference existed between the reading achievement scores of an experimental group and a control group in standardized reading achievement. This difference measured the effect of systematic oral reading fluency instruction with repeated readings. Data from the 4Sight Pennsylvania Benchmark Reading Assessments…

Based on Foucault's discourse on freedom and empowerment, this article addresses his understanding of power and knowledge. By critically examining the negative impact of the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" on education, the author discusses the transformative power of Foucault's pedagogy for educational reform in which students,…

This comparative case study investigated the teaching practices of secondary English language arts teachers who are reading endorsed versus secondary English language arts teachers who are not reading endorsed. Florida Department of Education mandated that all reading teachers, and strongly encouraged all English language arts teachers be reading…

High-stakes accountability policies such as the federal No Child Left Behind legislation require districts and schools to use data to measure progress toward standards. In doing so, such policies assume that practitioners can and will use data to enhance decisionmaking and improve teaching and learning. However, educators use and make sense of…

In this article, the author presents the story of Hope--an education student who, despite many successes, was consistently unable to pass the reading portion of a screening test (Praxis I) that is a prerequisite to student teaching in her home state of Georgia. Hope's only trouble was the fact that she was a slow reader due to attention deficit…

Special education literature abounds with a challenge to special educators to promote the acquisition of self-determination skills in their students. A critical component of self-determination that can be readily addressed in the school setting is self-advocacy. The authors believe that meeting the challenge of enhancing student's self-advocacy…