The Academy for Educational Development (AED) sent a research team to the University of Dayton (UD) on November 5-7, 2008, to conduct interviews with individuals who played significant roles in the university's teacher preparation program (see Appendix A). These interviews, along with additional materials provided by UD and identified by the AED…

Background/Context: In the early 1990s, the Spencer Foundation instituted an Institutional Research Training Grant (RTG) program to improve the preparation of the next generation of education researchers. UCLA received an RTG in the first round of competition. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: UCLA's Spencer RTG program sought to…

The Exploratorium is home to XTech, a science education program which began in 2006 and was primarily funded by a three-year National Science Foundation grant (Award # 05-25217) through its ITEST (Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers) initiative. XTech provided project-based afterschool activities in science, engineering,…

Improving the first-year experience has been part of a broader set of initiatives to respond to concerns about undergraduate education (Astin, Keup, & Lindholm, 2002). This research examined the efficacy of a first-year seminar on student satisfaction and retention at a Research Extensive, urban and public land-grant university. This study…

This article describes an early childhood professional development project that took place in the summer of 2005 in Guatemala City. Located in Central America, Guatemala has a population of approximately 12.3 million people, including more than two million children under the age of 5 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2007; UNICEF, 2004). Events…

The perceptions of teachers who have participated in professional development experiences provided by the Urban Systemic Initiative in four sites (Miami, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; El Pas, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee) were studied. Focus groups were conducted at each of the 47 schools across the 4 sites. Focus groups usually consisted of the five…

In the last decade, the Boston Public Schools has undergone critical reforms that have been of intense interest to school leaders and policymakers throughout the country. Under the leadership of superintendent Thomas Payzant, the Boston schools implemented extensive reform strategies that yielded notable results. Fittingly, at the end of Payzant's…

The results and prospects of the magnet school component of desegregation efforts in St. Louis are presented. Demand for magnet seats is outstripping the supply, and thus, the pace of desegregation is limited. But these schools offer an improved educational program and provide more educational choices for families. (VM)

Under the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation, 22 urban school districts have been involved in a long-term educational reform through the Urban Systemic Initiative (USI) program since 1994. This paper presents a brief summary of findings regarding best policies and practices in the educational reform effort focusing on student…

Thousands of schools around the country have implemented whole-school reform programs to boost student performance. This paper uses quasi-experimental methods to estimate the impact of whole-school reform on students' reading performance in New York City, where various reform programs were adopted in dozens of troubled elementary schools in the…

The paper describes an inner city elementary program for mainstreaming seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) students. It is suggested that the program, despite sharing the building with nonhandicapped students, is really physically segregated, and that rigid use of the Distar curriculum does not prepare the student for later creative problem…

This article reports the progress of 13 learning-disabled students after 1 year of planning and 1 year of implementing the "Mainstream Experiences for the Learning Disabled" (MELD) model in an urban elementary school. Students made no significant progress in reading or math and earned lower grades during the implementation year. (DB)

With the advent of No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, schools are being held accountable for measurable increases in student academic achievement as evidenced by performance on standardized tests. This movement has significant implications for the professional development of teachers who are ultimately responsible for ensuring that their…

This study attempts to show that it is possible for inner-city schools to teach basic reading successfully. Various successful programs were studied in order to discover the factors the schools had in common. The study was conducted during the School Year 1970-71 and four successful schools served as the basis of this report. Two schools were in…

A study investigated whether retention is an effective method for remediating low-level readers. It was hypothesized that there would not be a significant difference in reading test scores of low level readers between those who were retained in second grade and those who were promoted to third grade. The Metropolitan Achievement Test was used as a…