A high-poverty, previously low-performing elementary school in Maine shifted its from looking mainly at achievement and test scores to focusing on ways to create motivated, confident, engaged students. They created Rise and Shine, through which all 3rd-5th graders start each day with a fun, challenging activity chosen from a big menu--from…

4-H is the youth development program of the Cooperative Extension and has identified Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) as a national priority. Conducting STEM education during summer months for hard to reach youth can be a challenge. However, it is during summer when vulnerable students most often experience learning loss. During…

Business leaders in Maine cannot find the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) talent they need to stay competitive. Students' lagging performance in K-12 is a critical reason why. The good news is that the nation's most effective STEM education programs can help turn the tide. Maine students have made progress in math over the…

School-based childhood obesity prevention programs have grown in response to reductions in child physical activity (PA), increased sedentariness, poor diet, and soaring child obesity rates. Multiple systematic reviews indicate school-based obesity prevention/treatment interventions are effective, yet few studies have examined the school nurse role…

Guided by a new framework, the NAEP science assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments, and research. The 2009 framework organizes science content into three broad content areas. Physical science includes concepts related to properties and changes of matter, forms…

This study describes key challenges and necessary supports related to implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) identified by rural math educators in the Northeast. The research team interviewed state and district math coordinators and surveyed teachers in Maine, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont, to assess their…

Each state and jurisdiction that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 reading assessment receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. Overall results, achievement level percentages and average score results, comparison of the average score in 2011 to other…

Each state and jurisdiction that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2011 reading assessment receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. Overall results, achievement level percentages and average score results, comparison of the average score in 2011 to other…

Each state and jurisdiction that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2009 reading assessment receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. Overall results, achievement level percentages and average score results, comparison of the average score in 2009 to other…

This paper profiles Maine's test score trends through 2008-09. In 2006, the mean scale score on the state 4th grade reading test was 445 for non-Title I students and 438 for Title I students. In 2009, the mean scale score in 4th grade reading was 477 for non-Title I students and 441 for Title I students. Between 2006 and 2009, the mean scale score…

Reading Recovery is a short-term intervention program for first-graders who are at risk of failure in reading and writing. More than 1.5 million children have been served in the United States since 1984, and pre- and post-test Observation Survey scores have been collected across the nation for the past 20 years. Yet there is a need to determine…

The purpose of this study was to determine what, or part of what, makes academic success probable or improbable for a student. The core research question was, Which practices, characteristics, and circumstances of students, families, schools, school districts, and communities tend to give Maine students a higher probability of meeting state…

A comparison was made of student understandings of marine science and marine resource concepts in two geographically distant but similar sociocultural regions of the United States. The study is based on the nature of ecological events, students' understanding in the context of meaningful learning, and the cultural context in which learning takes…

This study assessed the level of scientific and natural resource knowledge that 4th, 8th, and 11th grade students in Maine possessed concerning acidic deposition. A representative sample of public school students (n=175) was interviewed on 12 concept principles considered critical to a full understanding of the acidic deposition problem. These…