Middle school is a cornerstone for success in high school. However, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement of adolescents often decline as they transition from elementary to middle school, resulting in lower school grades and more challenging behaviors, especially for adolescents with or at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders…

Positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS) improve student behavior. Yet, teachers may not receive adequate training to implement PBIS at the classroom level. This study evaluated class-wide function-related intervention teams (CW-FIT) as a classroom-level behavior management system to determine whether the behavior of middle school…

During the transition from the elementary to middle grades, young adolescents may become increasingly vulnerable for emotional and behavioral problems. Class-Wide Function-Related Intervention Teams for middle level school (CW-FIT MS), the independent variable examined in this study, was developed to improve teaching and learning by fostering…

Classroom management is commonly challenging in middle schools. Class-wide function-related intervention teams (CW-FIT) is a multitiered intervention designed to decrease problem behaviors at the classroom level. It is comprises evidence-based practices such as teaching classroom expectations, increasing teacher praise, and using positive…

Appropriate and effective classroom management skills are critical in supporting students' academic, social, and behavior development in schools; however, teachers often cite needing help with classroom management as their greatest need. Given this concern, school psychologists need effective and efficient strategies to offer to teachers and…

Middle school special education teachers often express concern about challenging student behavior. Class-Wide Function-Related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT), a behavior management program based on school-wide positive behavior support, have been effective in elementary general education classrooms. The present study, the first to apply it in a…

Data-based instructional programs have proliferated in American schools despite limited evidence of their effectiveness in improving educator practice and raising student achievement. We report results from a two-year school-randomized evaluation of the Achievement Network (ANet), a program providing schools with standards-aligned interim…

In this experimental study we examined the effects of a technology-mediated, multicomponent reading comprehension intervention, Comprehension Circuit Training (CCT), for middle school students, the majority of whom were struggling readers. The study was conducted in three schools, involving three teachers and 228 students. Using a within-teacher…

In this report, the authors present the results of a long-term tracking study that follows 1,177 students who applied to enter 1 of 13 oversubscribed Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) middle schools through a 5th or 6th grade admissions lottery in 2008 or 2009. Those students are now old enough to have attended college for at least two years. This…

Diplomas Now is a partnership of three national organizations--Talent Development Secondary, City Year, and Communities In Schools--collaborating in an effort to transform urban secondary schools so that fewer students drop out and more graduate ready for postsecondary education and work. With the goal of a continuous system of support through…

Purpose: We examined the effectiveness of a multistrategy inference intervention designed to increase inference making and reading comprehension for middle-grade struggling readers. Method: A total of 66 middle-grade struggling readers were randomized to treatment (n = 33) and comparison (n = 33) conditions. Students in the treatment group…

For the 2013 study, "Transfer Incentives for High-Performing Teachers: Final Results from a Multisite Randomized Experiment," researchers examined the impact of the Talent Transfer Initiative (TTI) on students' reading and mathematics achievement in 10 school districts. The TTI enabled principals of low-performing schools to provide…

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of 2 brief school-based interventions targeting the homework problems of adolescents with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)--the Homework, Organization, and Planning Skills (HOPS) intervention and the Completing Homework by Improving Efficiency and Focus (CHIEF) intervention, as implemented by…

This study examined the efficacy of a supplemental, multicomponent adolescent reading intervention for middle school students who scored below proficient on a state literacy assessment. Using a within-school experimental design, the authors randomly assigned 483 students in grades 6-8 to a business-as-usual control condition or to the Strategic…

Structural behavioral assessment (SBA) involves a series of heuristic approaches similar to those used with functional behavioral assessment (FBA). It involves assessing contextual variables that precede the occurrence of a behavior. These variables have also been termed antecedents, setting events, or establishing operations. Once these variables…