Purpose: Our purpose was to gather and evaluate accurate, up-to-date information on physical education (PE) policy implementation across multiple U.S. states and regions. Methods: A U.S. Physical Education and Physical Activity Policy questionnaire was developed and completed by 4,845 public-school PE teachers from 25 U.S. states. The U.S.…

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events occurring in the household or community that hold painful or distressing outcomes for children immediately and in their future (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019). School counselors work with children and young adolescents suffering from negative mental health…

Nearly all states and the District of Columbia have policies requiring schools to address prevention of alcohol or drug use and abuse in high school health education curricula, according to National Association of State Boards of Education's (NASBE's) State Health Policy Database. But with the added concerns about the pandemic's impact on youth…

In this essay, we discuss issues related to the integration of career exploration in our nation's middle schools. We discuss the theoretical and empirical basis for career exploration at the middle school level and identify selected barriers to its effective implementation, namely with regards to career advising and parent involvement. We also…

Positive motivation to perform work tasks has been associated with better performance and outcomes in both the organizational and informal education literature. In environmental education (EE), this means that more motivated instructors are likely to provide better programs for their participants. In this exploratory study across 15 states in the…

This paper reports results from a six-state study of 62 USA social studies classrooms. We examined the extent to which intellectually challenging authentic pedagogy was present in study classrooms, the characteristics of classroom practice at different levels of authentic pedagogy, and how those characteristics may promote or inhibit high levels…

The Striving Readers program aimed to raise the literacy levels of middle and high school students reading below grade level and to build a strong research base on effective adolescent literacy interventions. This report summarizes the results of a systematic review of evaluations of the ten different interventions funded by the Striving Readers…

Students hold many misconceptions as they transition from arithmetic to algebraic thinking, and these misconceptions can hinder their performance and learning in the subject. To identify the errors in Algebra I which are most persistent and pernicious in terms of predicting student difficulty on standardized test items, the present study assessed…

As highlighted by the National Math Panel Report (2008), consistent results from laboratory studies have demonstrated that interleaving worked examples with problems to solve improves learning for novices. The purpose of this work is to create materials and tests that can be used flexibly in classrooms and which employ worked examples interleaved…

This study employs latent class analysis to construct bullying involvement typologies among 3,114 students (48% male, 58% White) in 40 middle schools across the United States. Four classes were constructed: victims (15%); bullies (13%); bully/victims (13%); and noninvolved (59%). Respondents who were male and participated in fewer conventional…

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent that diagrammatic literacy is necessary for success on standardized science tests at the late-elementary and middle grade levels. Towards this goal, we quantified the frequency, form and function of graphical representations on select state science tests. 985 tests items from 14 states were…

This is the fourth in a series of eight newsletters highlighting best practices presented at the 2009 HSTW Staff Development Conference in Atlanta. These newsletters contain information about successful actions schools across the nation are taking to join hands-on and heads-on learning in ways that increase student motivation and achievement. This…

This newsletter focuses on strategies middle grades schools are using to prepare more students for success in high school. This is part of a series of newsletters describing best practices for implementing the HSTW, MMGW and TCTW (High Schools That Work, Making Middle Grades Work, Technology Centers That Work) school improvement models. The series…