Even in Lynnville-Sully Elementary School school with just 188 pupils, it was hard for teachers to offer intensive instruction to children who needed extra help while juggling the needs of the rest of their students. The school's reading-support staff created lesson plans that didn't always relate to regular classroom work. Teachers felt they had…

Only two of the most popular school improvement models for elementary schools have "moderately strong" evidence to show that they work, according to a consumer-style guide released last week by a Washington-based research group. The federally financed report by the American Institutes for Research rates 22 of the most widely used…

The proportion of public schools' meeting their prescribed achievement targets under the No Child Left Behind Act appears to have fallen slightly in the 2005-06 school year, while the percent classified under the law as needing improvement increased. The trends bear out earlier predictions that schools would find it increasingly hard to show…