In 1978 the New York State Board of Regents initiated action to establish statewide high school graduation standards for reading comprehension. The process began by measuring the readability levels of materials used in core courses and materials that adults normally read (newspapers, news magazines, and feature magazines). To do this,…

Several Methodological problems characterize the large number of studies of the relationship between students' socioeconomic background and their group or "track" placement in schools. Thus the degree of SES segregation resulting from instructional grouping in schools is unclear. One purpose of this study was to construct an alternative…