In a fifth-grade transitional bilingual class in Hartford (Connecticut), a project was conducted to focus on writing to learn in science. The process of writing facilitates development of critical thinking, deepens understanding of science content, and develops collaborative learning skills. The example of a set of lessons on the skeleton…

Guided by the Health Belief Model, focus groups identified strategies to promote parent involvement with their children's substance abuse education. Low-income parents and school personnel identified cues to action and necessary requirements (child care, transportation, incentives) as important in promoting parent involvement. Children's…

Reports on 1,000 African American and 260 Latino third-graders' perceptions of school climate. Findings show African American children viewed teacher-child relations as the most important dimension of school climate. Latino children stressed teacher fairness, caring, and praise for effort as well as the importance of moral order. Both groups…

Studies the relationship between academic achievement and inter-racial friendship development in Springfield (Massachusetts) elementary schools. Concludes that integration suffers because achievement plays an increasingly important role in friendship as a student moves through school. (FMW)

Urban elementary school teachers completed a checklist designed to determine a profile of the most significant factors that caused students to be at risk. Results indicated there were eight important factors: academic risk, behavior and coping skills, social withdrawal, family income, parenting, language development, retention, and attendance. (SM)

This description of the School Development Program of J. Comer at Valencia Park Center for Academics, Drama, and Dance in San Diego (California) is accompanied by an interview with E. Joyner. The approach focuses on nurturing students, parents, and teachers, rather than on weaknesses or deficits. (SLD)

An urban teacher highlighted cost of living to make mathematics instruction more meaningful and help students develop problem-solving strategies. Sixth graders created and operated their own businesses in class, learning how to depend upon themselves and budget their money as they faced realistic problems with budgets, bills, and sales. (Author/SM)

Discusses ongoing ethnographic research on interpersonal caring at an inner-city elementary school. Analyzes the perceptions of teachers, parents, teaching assistants, and students concerning how they describe what acting in the best interest of others means. Considers issues that may hinder the construction of shared meaning. (JB)

This study examined the effectiveness of an urban peer mediation program. Third- and fourth-grade students were trained as conflict managers to mediate schoolmates' conflicts. They mediated 323 conflicts during the school year; most successfully. Most conflicts involved physical and verbal attacks. Mediation usually resulted in agreements to avoid…

This study was designed to answer the question "Does excessive absenteeism affect student academic achievement?" During the 2002-2003 academic year, 188 students attending grades 3 through 5 at an urban Tennessee elementary school with a high poverty level participated in the study. Demographic data were gathered to provide descriptive…

Results of surveys completed by students in grades six and nine in the Springfield (Massachusetts) public school system are reported for 1990 through 1995. The report is based on an analysis of responses within user-defined categories of drug use, alcohol use, and nonuse. In 1995, while 72 percent of those in grade 6 responded, only 26 percent of…

A study was conducted in a middle to upper class neighborhood in a Minnesota city to determine the practices that the Spanish teacher used to encourage full student participation and to consider whether the Freirian view of education can furnish an adequate framework for understanding this teacher's practices. Of the school's more than 500…

Rate of retention in grade is a measure of the number of students who repeat the grade they were in the year before. This report of retention rates is produced annually for the Austin (Texas) Independent School District, but contains information produced after the beginning of the school year and data produced at the end of the school year…

Success for All (SFA), a schoolwide research-based reform model developed by Robert Slavin and his associates at Johns Hopkins University, is based on the premise that all students can and must succeed in the early grades. The program targets students in the lower grades, providing them with intensive instruction in language arts. This effort is…

This paper is the second report on the purpose, methodology, and results of a large-scale statistical analysis of standardized test scores from Chicago public elementary schools for 1988 and 1989. Major purposes were to develop methods for measuring student improvement (change) at the individual and school levels, to find ways of identifying…