Background: This longitudinal study examines the long-term effects on the achievement of students at a diverse suburban high school after all students were given accelerated mathematics in a detracked middle school as well as ninth-grade "high-track" curriculum in all subjects in heterogeneously grouped classes. Despite considerable…

A study investigated the use of graphic organizers in classrooms--specifically examined was the use of graphic organizers as visual and organizational tools to facilitate student comprehension of expository text. Subjects consisted of 107 kindergarten through eighth-grade teachers (both regular and special educators) teaching in rural and urban…

As an alternative to a pullout program, Ardsley (New York) Middle School implemented a collaborative/integrated special education program for grades five through eight. Each interdisciplinary team has a communication arts, social studies, math, and science teacher, as well as a special education teacher and a teaching assistant. Additional support…

The Future Problem Solving process engages middle school students in real-world issues by creating a multidisciplinary "think tank" environment requiring them to apply both divergent (brainstorming, creativity, flexibility) and convergent (analysis, synthesis, evaluation) strategies to political problems. The process can accurately…

Describes an authentic assessment framework for music educators by summarizing a collaborative project between a music-education professor and a general music teacher at DeWitt Middle School in Ithaca, New York. States that the project shows how an interactive, process-oriented approach to assessing musical understanding is both possible and…

In this paper, we address the issue of how teachers select primary and secondary texts for classroom use by focusing on two New York state middle school history teachers. Our field studies show that, although they teach diverse groups of students, each teacher chooses a wide variety of sources to develop classroom units and test preparation…

Students' success in high school depends on the subjects selected in middle school, which in turn influences the choice of subjects in college. Some of the steps that Mamaroneck Union Free School District has undertaken to improve academic performance of students, especially minority ones, are improving school facilities, introducing a new math…

For five years running, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has tracked states' teacher policies, preparing a detailed and thorough compendium of teacher policy in the United States on topics related to teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, career advancement, tenure, compensation, pensions and dismissal. The "2011 State…

The Children's Aid Society believes that innovative funding models should be used to train faculty and to provide school-based mental health services to the more than 90,000 children in New York State who suffer from serious mental illness but do not receive treatment. To treat these children's often disruptive, threatening, aggressive and…

Describes the development of the Lunch Lab program at the Mineola (New York) Middle Schools, part of a school improvement program incorporating teacher empowerment. A committee of seven teachers and two administrators researched, developed, and implemented the pilot project that provides a special time for seventh graders to receive extra help…

The Manhattanville (New York) College Neuroscience Outreach Program is a research-based effort that presents different topics in neuroscience to science students in local middle schools. The program aims to provide a forum for curriculum development and teaching, enhance a cooperative internal community, and increase student awareness of the…

The current study explored the relationships between parenting practices and adolescent drug use. Suburban middle school students (N = 2129) completed surveys that included measures of perceived parental monitoring, discipline and setting an anti-drug message as well as measures of drug-related knowledge, attitudes and peer norms. Results…

This article describes the Cornell Science Challenge, an annual science fair held at Olin Hall at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. This science fair features seventh graders from East Middle School in New York who have been mentored for three months by actual scientists (graduate students, faculty members, laboratory technicians, and…

Focus groups with five sets of stakeholders (middle school students, high school students, school staff, agency representatives, parents) identified beliefs, values, and issues related to school safety. The following themes were accompanied by recommendations: communication among stakeholders, teacher discipline procedures, redefinition of…

An effort to implement a schoolwide innovation concerning computer applications begun in the English Department of the Hauppauge Middle School on Long Island, New York, is described. The program was proposed and implemented through a series of meetings, discussions, workshops, and orientations for teachers and administrators. English teachers, who…