A middle school program in Phoenix, New York, was planned to provide for trainable and low functioning educable mentally retarded students in an integrated setting. Cooperation between the planning team and the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation resulted in a program for 13 students aged 11 to 14 with four major areas of concentration: social…

Social studies teachers in Liverpool, New York, furnish their students with significant cultural experiences by a strategy called total immersion day. Two middle schools organized this experience by having grade six students examine a particular area, its geography, history, culture, and politics. The culminating activity of the study unit, an…

An in-depth ethnographic study of an upstate New York Middle School in an ethnically polarized community investigated teacher and community response to multicultural literature initiatives. Most of the data for the study came from interviews with and observations of teachers in the school; it was collected mostly over the 1991-92 school year when…

Imprecise definitions and indeterminate effects of schooling have plagued the field of writing and have led to a persistent antagonism between the professional teacher and the professional assessor. Into this historical situation entered portfolio assessment in the 1980s. Can portfolio's be used in lieu of standardized tests and other forms of…

This article describes the Veteran's Oral History Project, a collaboration between students at Isaac Young Middle School and pre-service teachers enrolled in the author's middle school education class at the College of New Rochelle. The pre-service teachers developed and taught an integrated interdisciplinary unit on the Vietnam era, culminating…

This report presents the results of a three-year educational partnership that supports a unique interdisciplinary team approach to professional development. The Sage Colleges collaborated with two school districts (City School District of Albany and Niskayuna Central School District) to enable educators to align content and standards; draw upon a…

This report provides selected results from the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for New York's public-school students at grades 4 and 8. Since 1992, reading has been assessed in four different years at the state level (at grade 4 in 1992 and 1994, and at both grades 4 and 8 in 1998 and 2002). New York participated in all of…

The most common configuration for the middle level is for grades 6-8 to be housed together. Although not a common configuration, there are some ninth grade only campuses sprinkled throughout the United States. Many of these schools were designed to address overcrowding issues either at the middle or high school while some were designed to help…

The New York edition of the National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) 2009 "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" is the third annual look at state policies impacting the teaching profession. It is hoped that this report will help focus attention on areas where state policymakers can make changes that will have a positive impact on teacher…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose and demonstrate an evidence-based scenario design framework for assessment-based computer games. Design/methodology/approach: The evidence-based scenario design framework is presented and demonstrated by using BELLA, a new assessment-based gaming environment aimed at supporting student learning of…

This research reports on the efforts of six middle school and high school science teachers in a public school district in New York City to balance innovative teaching methods and strategies with the New York State Learning Standards and Regents requirements. More specifically, this research examines the factors that influenced the implementation…

When a New York school district found a majority of its middle school students scoring below an acceptable level in four major academic areas, it tried many interventions, including a three-year experiment in single-gender classrooms. Although single-gender classrooms are no longer as common in the United States as in years past, recent…

This document has been prepared to help teachers and administrators in New York plan and execute a mathematics program for grade eight. The syllabus is designed to improve the problem solving abilities of students, while continuing a natural development of mathematical skills and concepts. Problem solving situations are emphasized in each of seven…

This resource monograph updates 1983 and 1984 resource monographs intended as reference tools for New York State school districts considering grade-level reorganization of educational programs for early adolescents. The chapters of this document: (1) summarize contents of the previous monographs; (2) discuss current research and information on…

This position paper examines educational policies, school effectiveness, and responses to broader public policy concerns in the context of the special needs of early adolescence. The policy issues under consideration derive from a statewide comprehensive survey of educational trends in the middle grades and are addressed in a statewide Regents…