This report describes Blalock FIRST, a 3-year collaborative research project designed to improve literacy skills of low-income, African American families living in a severely depressed urban housing project. Project implementation, and antecedents to the implementation, are described. Objectives of the project were to: (1) increase achievement in…

This evaluation report examines effects of integrating 39 students with mental retardation in 5 elementary and 2 middle schools in Madison (Wisconsin) during the 1988-89 school year. Also reported is the integration of 20 students into the high school program. Data used included interviews and questionnaires with 16 general and 9 special education…

This paper describes the use of "buddy journals" to generate enthusiasm for writing, provide writing practice, and build friendships between two classes of middle school students with learning disabilities and cognitive impairments. The buddy journals were introduced to the students as a way to get to know someone better and perhaps make a friend.…

Long-term studies were undertaken to attempt to link children's prejudices with their stages of moral development. If a relation could be shown between a low moral stage and prejudice, it might be possible to devise educational strategies to raise children's moral stages and strengthen their moral development and consciences. A broad…

This study examined the effects of instructional control and aptitude composition on performance, interaction, and attitudes during a computer-based cooperative science lesson. A sample of 152 fifth and sixth grade students completed the instruction either under the learner control (LC) or the program control (PC) treatment. In the LC treatment,…

The Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) of Travis County, Texas, serves students aged 10 to 17 who have been expelled from the Travis County, Luling, and Gonzalez school districts under Chapter 37 of the Texas Education Code for serious offenses such as felony drug possession, assault, or weapons possession. The program provides…

How students perceive standardized tests and routine classroom tests on subject matter units was studied by surveying 61 fifth-grade and 65 eighth-grade students in public schools in Michigan. It was hypothesized that older students would more often distinguish between the types of test and would be more cynical and less motivated than would…

"Becoming Successful Problem Solvers" is a 12-episode video series designed for use with middle school students. The materials are intended to create new assessment tools for teachers, to develop instructional devices that are useful in promoting problem solving in middle school classrooms, and to promote classroom discourse about…

This practicum report describes a 12-week project to decrease truancy and improve motivation and academic performance of three students (ages 12 to 18) hospitalized with severe emotional disturbances. A visible and powerful reward system using a menu strategy was developed and implemented in which students participated daily in establishing goals…

The progress report on the Amigos two-way bilingual education program in the Cambridge (Massachusetts) public schools describes: research on the achievement in mathematics, Spanish, and English of Amigos students and students in control/comparison groups; data gathered on students' and parents' attitudes toward bilingualism and biculturalism;…

Student socioeconomic status (SES) and the perceptions of students' and teachers' expectations and attributions of responsibility for learning and their relationships to achievement were studied using linear structural equation modeling. Two models were developed and tested. One model included student expectations and attributions of…

In open-ended interviews, students characterized their teachers as: mean, hard, easy, good, strict, fun, or nice. Analyses of later student interviews suggested that, when these seventh-grade students conceptualize their teachers, they attend to four major foci: (1) academic work students are expected to complete; (2) teachers' instructional…

Fifteen teachers from grades one through twelve and sixty pupils were sampled using a contextual approach to the investigation of teachers' verbal and nonverbal behavior. Pupils were categorized as accepting, concerned, indifferent, or rejecting by their respective teachers, and the student-initiated question frame was selected as a suitable and…

The curriculum guide for Project CHANGE (Concepts of Handicaps and Attitudes Need Guidance and Education), designed to improve children's attitudes toward the disabled, presents lesson plans for children in kindergarten through Grade 3 divided into seven curricular units: normal health, senses, acceptance of individual differences, blindness,…

THIS SHORT-TERM EVALUATION OF THE MORE EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS (MES) PROGRAM IN 21 NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS ASSESSED THE MES INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM AND ITS IMPACT ON THE STUDENTS. DATA WERE GATHERED FROM (1) OBSERVATIONAL VISITS TO CLASSROOMS BY TWO-MEMBER TEAMS OF EDUCATORS AND SOCIAL SCIENTISTS, (2) STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS WITH…