America spends $115,000 per-pupil on education, one of the highest in the world. Even with high funding being provided for the educational budget, standardized state assessment scores are not reflecting the aim for higher quality of education that NCLB is trying to accomplish. Teachers use an assortment of assessments to gauge student's mastery…

The Social Support Questionnaire for Children (SSQC) is a 50-item scale that assesses children's social support from parents, relatives, nonrelative adults, siblings, and peers. The SSQC demonstrates good psychometric properties (e.g., internal consistency, factorial validity). Furthermore, the SSQC appears to be an ethnically sensitive measure of…

This study tested the effects of a school-based test anxiety intervention among ethnic minority youth. The study used a prospective intervention design with a sample of (N = 94) ninth graders from New Orleans exposed to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Thirty youth with elevated test anxiety completed a primarily behavioral (e.g., relaxation…

It was heartwarming to see so many states, school districts, and communities throughout the United States open their doors to the children of Katrina. This response was a graphic portrayal of the spirit of volunteerism, the value of the more able assisting the less fortunate, and the sense of altruism that surfaces when major crises occur.…

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina displaced the largest number of public school children ever affected by any disaster. Approximately 370,000 children, including 15,000 Latino/Hispanic children from Louisiana, were scattered throughout the 48 U.S. states (Landrieu, 2010; Louisiana Department of Education, 2004). Although much of the media…

To investigate the interactional behaviors of minorities when placed in a mostly white educational setting, this study focused on examining the meaning held by particular students in regard to acceptance, inclusion, and invitation into a larger group, in this case, the seventh grade at a university laboratory school in Louisiana. Of the 28…

This handbook provides Louisiana educators with information on the special needs of migrant children, the lawful obligations of Louisiana schools to address those needs, and the types of assistance available through the Migrant Education Program and other resources. To meet the needs of at-risk migrant students, the Louisiana Department of…

This document summarizes a field hearing that examined the problems faced by low-income young black children in Louisiana, as well as successful home-, community-, and school-based early intervention programs. Thirteen witnesses testified primarily on child care needs and the health status of the State's children. The following problems were…

Louisiana received funds under Title VII of the Emergency School Aid Act to conduct a 23 month Special Students Concerns Project, aimed at eliminating the disproportionately high incidence of suspension, expulsions, and other disciplinary action involving minority group students in public schools. As proposed, the first six to eight months of the…

At Coppin State University, a historically Black university, nearly 120 ninth-graders are enrolled in the Coppin Academy. The academy is one of nearly a dozen such innovative school partnerships nationwide, aiming to apply study results that suggest that African-American students may perform better in smaller, more personalized learning…

Minority group students are disproportionately represented in special education programs and have alarmingly high dropout rates. In rural Louisiana, special educators must cope with teaching a population that is poor, ethnically diverse, and somewhat isolated from mainstream America. An assessment instrument designed to identify training needs of…

This book uses extensive interviews and statistical data to examine the failed desegregation efforts in Louisiana as a case study to illustrate how desegregation has followed the same unsuccessful pattern across the United States. It shows that the practical difficulty with desegregation is that academic environments are created by all the…

This report provides data on the academic achievement gap that separates low-income and minority students from other students, examining how well different groups of students perform in Louisiana and noting inequities in teacher quality, course offerings, and funding. Included are tables and data that provide: a frontier gap analysis (a comparison…

This report compares Louisiana's reading and mathematics performance on the most recent administrations of the state assessment with performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). To indicate how Louisiana is doing in narrowing the academic achievement gap between African American, Latino, or low-income students and their…