This study addresses two questions: (1) Why do fourth grade students in Rhode Island perform better on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) than eighth grade students?, and (2) Why do Rhode Island parochial students perform better on the ITBS than public school students? The examination of both questions focused on three areas: school setting…

This volume describes the technical aspects of TIMSS 2003 and summarizes the main activities involved in the development of the data collection instruments, the data collection itself, and the analysis and reporting of the data. The thirteen chapters contained herein are: (1) Overview of TIMSS 2003 (Michael O. Martin and Ina V. S. Mullis); (2)…

Collective teacher efficacy (CTE) refers to the collective perception that teachers in a given school make an educational difference to their students over and above the educational impact of their homes and communities. Significant positive relationships were found between CTE and student achievement on the grade 8 math, writing, and English…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) gives states wide discretion to define what students must learn, how that knowledge should be tested, what test scores constitute proficiency, set standards for high school graduation rates, teacher qualifications, school safety and many other aspects of school performance. As a result, states are largely free to define…

This document offers many of the insights and comments of Maryland elementary school teachers who scored the 1992 Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) tests. The MSPAP covers reading, writing, social studies, mathematics, and science and is administered to students in grades 3, 5, and 8. The document contains the teachers' most…

This document offers many of the insights and comments of Maryland elementary school teachers who scored the 1993 Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) tests. The MSPAP covers reading, writing, social studies, mathematics, and science and is administered to Maryland students in grades 3, 5, and 8. Comments and observations are…

The 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) monitored the performance of students in American schools in reading, mathematics, science, and writing. The sample consisted of more than 145,000 public and private school students in grades 4, 8, 11, and 12. This technical report provides details of instrument development, sample…

This second statewide School Performance Report offers a snapshot of public education in Wisconsin during the 1992-93 school year. District-collected data make up the School Climate section, providing information on enrollment, attendance, suspensions, expulsions, retentions, dropouts, graduation and later education, and extracurricular and…

Students in poverty areas still perform poorly on achievement tests, have high dropout rates, and are not receiving the kind of assistance they need. This paper reports the educational experiences and needs of middle school students in poverty. Specific topics include: (1) the distribution of middle school students in poverty by social background,…

An explanation of why Asian American students perform better than others in school may lie in the nature of the learning programs they receive at home. The purpose of this paper is to define such programs that account for most of the differences in academic achievement among racial/ethnic groups. Data were used from the National Education…

The purpose of this practicum was to effect a substantial improvement in the academic and social profiles of 12 seventh-grade and 6 eighth-grade students with specific learning disabilities who had been targeted as potentially high risk candidates for dropping out of high school. Within a holistically based intervention model, five student…

The Massachusetts Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) was established in 1985 to compare academic achievement among schools and districts and to give curriculum and instructional guidance. Biennially, it tests all students in grades 4, 8, and 12 in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. Using a matrix sampling design, each student…

The progress of sixth-graders in elementary and middle schools was compared in terms of achievement test scores, attendance, discipline, and grade point average. Three groups of sixth-graders from the Austin schools were examined: (1) 1987-88 sixth-graders for 3 years (grades 6, 7, and 8); (2) 1988-89 sixth-graders for 2 years (grades 6 and 7);…

Programed mastery learning materials on matrix algebra were studied by 59 eighth-grade boys. Both experimental and control groups were divided into high- and low-ability groups. The experimental group reviewed all three instructional units until students achieved mastery, but the control group reviewed only Unit 3. Test scores of the treatment…

The extent to which the use of the Graphics Expression Reading Improvement System (GERIS) improved the reading skills of Title I was investigated. The GERIS program, which combines an eight-step process in language skill development with student-created television productions, was used at two schools during the 1972-73 school year. One hundred…