This is the third in a series of studies examining young students' attitudes toward and knowledge about computers. Data were collected at the end of students' third and fourth grade academic years and analyzed with respect to their "love" of computers, their feelings of competence in using them, and the number of computer terms they…

Both socioeconomic and school factors contribute to the underachievement of poor children and children of color. This article explores factors that contribute to the underachievement of students of color and offers practices that culturally proficient school leaders can use to build a school culture that may positively impact the academic…

Since 1996, our research team has conducted 15 focus groups with 169 middle-school youth in small communities as formative research for campaigns against alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and violence. Some key findings of a synthesis of focus-group results are that girls and boys perceive different risks to alcohol and tobacco use; peer relationships are…

American Indian education has an important place in U.S. education, and grantmakers can form lasting relationships with indigenous communities that will have a broad impact on not only native education, but on education in the U.S. a whole. These relationships can yield transformational change in Indian communities and can be rewarding for…

This monograph provides the 1975-2005 national trends in smoking, drinking, and illicit drug use among American secondary school students. It covers subgroup differences, attitudes and beliefs about use, social milieu, degree and duration of drug highs, initiation rates, prevalence and frequency, and trends in illicit drug and alcohol use. Drug…

This report presents comprehensive information on juvenile crime, violence, and victimization and on the juvenile justice system. This report brings together the latest available statistics from a variety of sources and includes numerous tables, graphs, and maps, accompanied by analyses in clear, nontechnical language. The report offers Congress,…

This study examined the relationship between high-stakes testing pressure and student achievement across 25 states. Standardized portfolios were created for each study state. Each portfolio contained a range of documents that told the "story" of accountability implementation and impact in that state. Using the "law of comparative…

Adequate yearly progress (AYP) on No Child Left Behind criteria was examined for a randomly selected sample of districts that qualify for the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP). The sample involved 10% of districts that were eligible for the Small Rural Schools Achievement (SRSA) program and 10% that were eligible for the Rural and…

This study examined the learning styles of postsecondary and secondary students in selected institutions throughout South Carolina. The sample included over 2,000 college and university students and over 6,000 high school students. The five-phased research program examined: (1) the learning styles of first-year college students; (2) the learning…

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores of Asian, Hispanic, Black, and White students with similar socioeconomic backgrounds and access to similar instruction in the same large midwestern school district were compared. Income levels were determined by using federal guidelines for free and reduced school lunches. The population of the study consisted…

This profile is a "biographical sketch" of the nation's students based on information gathered in the 1986 and 1988 National Assessments of Educational Progress (NAEP) as part of their surveys of proficiencies in subject areas. The report is based primarily on data from the 1988 assessment, in which about 79,000 students in grades 4, 8,…

This study examined variables related to college predisposition among students of different ethnic groups who attended schools enrolling high percentages of minority students and high percentages of students participating in free or subsidized school lunch programs. It is based on a subset of data from the 1988 National Education Longitudinal…

Preparing inservice and preservice teachers and administrators to meet the challenges of student diversity requires collaboration among teacher educators, state leaders, school practitioners, and the community. The Urban Living-Learning Teaching Center partnership is designed to meet this challenge. The partnership includes faculty,…

This annual report compares graduation rates for scholarship athletes at Oklahoma public and private institutions of higher education to those of the student body as a whole over 3- and 6-year periods. Colleges and universities identified scholarship athletes in 11 sport categories: football, basketball, baseball, softball, track and field,…

Biology I students (n=166) in a high school in southern Mississippi completed the Learning Styles Inventory, a 45-item instrument designed to measure preference for channel of learning (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic), sociological environment (individually or in groups), and mode of expression (oral or written). A three-way analysis of variance…