The achievement gap between African American students and their Caucasian peers has been of concern for quite some time in the field of education (Orfield, Losen, Wald, & Swanson, 2004). As a result, this article examined high stakes reading test scores for 4,135 African American students in grades 3 through 10 in a Midwestern school district.…

This report describes findings from the second year of the most comprehensive, intensive, and carefully constructed study to date of trends in student achievement in all 50 states since 2002, the year the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was enacted. Last year, the Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent nonprofit organization, began this…

Using data from Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, this issue of "Data Notes" looks at student developmental education and gateway course outcomes by gender. The data show that more than half of students were referred to developmental math, with female students being more likely to be referred than male students. Females were more…

Research has focused on four groups of factors and the achievement gap: (1) student characteristics (high school GPA, attendance patterns, courses taken in high school, participation in extra-curricular activities, etc.); (2) family characteristics (family structure, in home, parents' level of education, mobility, etc.); (3) school-based…

The Black-White gap in completed schooling among Southern born men narrowed sharply between the World Wars after being stagnant from 1880 to 1910. We examine a large scale school construction project, the Rosenwald Rural Schools Initiative, which was designed to dramatically improve the educational opportunities for Southern rural Blacks. From…

Title I provides extra instructional services designed to raise achievement for low-performing students in schools with relatively high poverty rates, and for all students in many of the nation's highest-poverty schools. To learn more about how well Title I students are performing academically, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) compared…

Despite the intense focus on the achievement gap that exists between African American, Latino, and other students of color and their White counterparts, the achievement gap discourse keeps us locked in the deficit paradigm. This article challenges us to look at the inherent fallacies of the achievement gap discourse and place students' academic…

Colleges can gain a better understanding of their students' progress by comparing themselves to peers. Using data from Achieving the Dream: Community College Count, this issue of "Data Notes" focuses on Achieving the Dream colleges that serve high percentages of Hispanic, black, and low-income students. This analysis reveals the noteworthy result…

"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) More Good, Less Bad, and Still Need for Improvement: Latest International Test Reveals U.S. Progress in Math and…

A major goal of science education reform is to produce curricula that improve the learning of all students. In this study, the authors explore the use of design-based learning (DBL) to achieve this end. They examined two middle school science classes taught by a teacher who switched for the first time from a standard, scripted inquiry approach to…

This study investigates the effects of integrating literacy instruction with biology coursework on high school student learning. It would investigate the relationship between the growth in reading achievement and biology learning. It will target schools serving especially large populations of African American and Latino students. The project will…

"Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life" presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning…

The purpose of this study was to critically examine the perceptions that African-American high school students have towards engineering. A qualitative research design using criterion sampling and snowballing was used to select seven African-American students from urban high schools to participate in the research. Semi-structured interviews were…

Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) earned a performance grade of "B" for the second year in a row and was just seven points short of the points required to earn an "A." This Research Capsule summarizes several key elements that contributed to the district's achievement. Results indicate that, in most cases, students'…

In September 2006, the State Board approved a new System Direction to guide the two-year-college system for the next ten years. One of three primary goals for the system is to increase educational attainment for the economic development of the state and the economic well-being of Washingtonians. Since 2000, State Board staff has provided periodic…