Roughly 80% of the math and science schools under the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (NCSSSMST) umbrella are non-residential programs, with about 18% residential and 2% both residential and nonresidential. Now numbering 16 (with the Tennessee Governor's Academy closing May 2011), the…

"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) "The Nation's Report Card": Too Many High School Seniors Unprepared for College-Level Math and Reading; (2)…

One prohibitory component to graduation rates in college is the lack of student success in college algebra. The current national passing rate of college students enrolled in college algebra is approximately 40 percent. Lack of success in college algebra creating higher enrollments in remediation courses for students has also been linked to…

There are increasing concerns about the mathematics ability of students entering higher education. This situation appears to be as a result of the perceived lowering standards of A Levels, a reduction in entry requirements on some courses with a strong mathematical component and the wide-ranging educational backgrounds of many of the students.…

This article presents questions and answers about ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks. ACT's College Readiness Benchmarks are the minimum ACT test scores required for students to have a high probability of success in credit-bearing college courses--English Composition, social sciences courses, College Algebra, or Biology. Colleges can use the…

This article presents an annotated bibliography of recent research related to academic advising. It includes eight research papers that focus on advising.

The purpose of this report is to examine results in mathematics for the ACT Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS) in schools nationwide. EPAS consists of three programs: EXPLORE[R] (for students in grade 8 or 9), PLAN[R] (for students in grade 10), and the ACT[R] test (for students in grade 11 or 12). The following questions are…

This unit provides some activities designed to familiarize the reader with the TI-59 and instructions on creating a library of programs on magnetic cards. (MP)

Twelve problems which can be proved by the "mailbox principle" are stated and discussed. (DT)

An axiomatic development of the derivative and the antiderivative is presented. (DT)

Highlights in the history of the axiomatic method are described, and Hilbert's and Godel's contributions are discussed. (DT)

The question is addressed of choosing four points on the circumference of an ellipse so that the quadrilateral formed has maximum area. (MP)

Based on the dominated convergence theorem and parametric differentiation, two different evaluations of the Laplace integral are displayed. This article presents two different proofs of (1) which may be of interest since they are based on principles within the realm of real analysis. The first method applies the dominated convergence theorem to…

A method is presented for solving the general quartic by using two classical curves: the ellipse and the conchoid of Nichomedes. (MP)

This paper concerns the derivation of a closed form for a function f(x) given closed forms for f(g(x)) and g(x). (SD)