Middle- and upper-middle-class students continue to outpace those from less privileged backgrounds. Most attempts to redress this inequality focus on the issue of access to financial resources, but as "Producing Success" makes clear, the problem goes beyond mere economics. In this eye-opening study, Peter Demerath examines a typical suburban…

The Maryland School Assessment (MSA) is administered annually to students in grades 3-8 in reading and math. MSA data are used to meet federal No Child Let Behind (NCLB) requirements. This paper presents how Maryland students' reading and mathematics MSA scores continued to improve in 2009, and the achievement gaps among special services and…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Senate Appropriations Committee Passes Education Funding Bill: Bill Would Target 40 Percent of School Improvement…

Teachers' work is changing rapidly worldwide but is rarely a topic of sustained focus in the literature on teaching English as an additional language. Despite this lack of robust scholarly attention, ESL, bilingual, and content specialists working in primary, secondary, and tertiary contexts contend with the demands of changing demographics and…

The 2008 Leaders Emerging Issues Program brought together a bipartisan group of state legislative leaders with experts in education and public policy to explore potential solutions to the nation's dropout crisis. Participants explored the basic elements of a comprehensive education system that meets the needs of all students, especially those at…

Why is it that some schools are more successful that others in improving achievement in literacy and numeracy for those pupils who have barriers to their learning? What is it that makes the difference for the lowest achieving 20% of pupils? Her Majesty's Inspectors visited a number of schools that were making a significant difference for…

This article describes a multifaceted program that improves the mathematics instruction in a school district's 10 lowest-performing schools. This program includes seven support components--including monetary incentives for teachers, professional development, education technology, and reduced class sizes. After three years, results show that the…

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has published the "Data Book" for each of the past 24 years, tracking the well-being of America's children nationally and by state. To take advantage of the tremendous growth in research and data on child development, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has improved how they measure child well-being and rank…

In the fall of 2005 and as a second year doctoral student in an educational leadership program, the author was given the opportunity to participate in oral history research with three other White women, including one professor and two doctoral students. The oral history involved interviewing approximately twenty prior students of Frederick…

School counselors and educators tend to focus on the symptoms of cultural discontinuity and often view these symptoms as root causes for underachievement. In this article we use an ecosystemic paradigm to explore the relationship among cultural discontinuity, psychological distress, and academic achievement. Recommendations include ways in which…

New Mexico's unique demographics and rich intellectual assets, including two of the three largest national engineering and science research laboratories in the country (Sandia and Los Alamos), provide an excellent national setting for educational transformation. With approximately 320,000 K-12 students, New Mexico's demographics are distinctive:…

The importance of college degree completion for U.S. society and economic competitiveness makes it imperative to improve educational outcomes for Latino students. Institutional leaders, educators, and policymakers who recognize this imperative are challenged to determine what they can do to improve educational outcomes for Latino students.…

By reducing class size we will close the achievement gap in public school education, caused by prior neglect especially since the civil rights era of the sixties. Additional, highly qualified and specialized teachers will more effectively manage a smaller class size and serve more individual student needs in the crucial early grades, where a solid…

Principals are required by policy, regulation, legislation and democratic discourse to promote equity of outcomes. This integrated review investigates research on equity issues facing five student groups: special needs students; religious, cultural and racial minorities; groups disadvantaged by socioeconomic status; gender groups; and students…

Since the 1960s The Netherlands has produced policy to combat educational inequalities stemming from the social milieu and ethnicity of pupils. This policy has evolved from local to central policy and back again to a decentralised level. The initial focus on disadvantaged native Dutch pupils in big cities has shifted to immigrant groups and--at…