The relationships between cumulative family risk factors and American students' academic performance were examined in all 50 States and the District of Columbia. Data from the 2007 "American Community Survey" were used to ascertain the percent of birth to 18 year old children in the United States who experienced three or more risk…

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an international assessment of student performance in reading literacy at the fourth grade. PIRLS measures students in the fourth year of formal schooling because this is typically when students' learning transitions from a focus on "learning to read" to a focus on…

Researchers have used various theories to explain deaf individuals' reading skills, including the dual route reading theory, the orthographic depth theory, and the early language access theory. This study tested 4 groups of children--hearing with dyslexia, hearing without dyslexia, deaf early signers, and deaf late signers (N = 857)--from 4…

This paper studies the link between school facilities (buildings and grounds) and student achievement in eight countries using data from the TIMSS 2003 database. The results indicate a negative relationship, but the estimated coefficients are mainly insignificant. Interestingly, the coefficients differ heavily across countries. Whereas there seem…

Extensive support for the seemingly paradoxical negative effects of school- and class-average achievement on academic self-concept (ASC)-the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE)--is based largely on secondary students in Western countries or on cross-cultural Program for International Student Assessment studies. There is little research testing the…

It is generally expected that funds invested in public instruction will strengthen pupil achievement. Similarly, it is expected that enrollments of young children in preschool education should lead to higher achievement. In a trend analysis, we examined three variables as predictors of grade 8 achievement in 2007: (1) state expenditures per…

This study investigated U.S. ethnic majority and minority youth's perceptions of fair and unfair treatment by authorities and evaluations of three situations of interracial exclusion (N = 685). Findings revealed that older adolescents who reported fair treatment by authorities were more likely to perceive wrongfulness in interracial exclusion…

This report measures trends in performance among urban schools receiving federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) awards as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The Council of the Great City Schools aims to document how member districts of the Council of the Great City Schools implemented SIG and specifically what…

This report provides a detailed portrait of Hispanic and White academic achievement gaps and how students' performance has changed over time at both the national and state levels. The report presents achievement gaps using reading and mathematics assessment data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for the 4th- and 8th-grade…

This dissertation examined the relationship between language and reading in bilingual English-Arabic children. The dissertation followed a two chapter Review and Research Format. Chapter One presents a review of research that examined the relationship between oral language and reading development in bilingual English-Arabic children. Chapter Two…

At present, although the percentages of students with disabilities (SDs) and/or students who are English language learners (ELL) excluded from a NAEP administration are reported, no statistical adjustment is made for these excluded students in the calculation of NAEP results. However, the exclusion rates for both SD and ELL students vary…

This study used an analysis of variance (ANOVA)-like approach to predict reading proficiency with student, teacher, and school-level predictors based on a 3-level hierarchical generalized linear model (HGLM) analysis. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2000 reading data for 4th graders sampled from 46 states of the United States of…

The National Indian Education Study is a two-part study designed to describe the condition of education for American Indian/Alaska Native students in the United States. The study was conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics for the U.S. Department of Education, with the support of the Office of Indian Education. This report, Part…

Concludes that prior research show either no difference between homeschooled children and other children, or a difference favoring homeschooled children. This suggests that homeschooled children's social skills are certainly no worse than those of children attending conventional schools, and are probably better. This study finds that homeschooled…