Examines students' (25 low achieving fourth graders) understanding of conceptual features of decimals. Assessment results indicated that students' thinking was influenced by the types of concrete materials used to represent decimals; that low achievers' understanding of some important properties of decimals increased; and that understanding grew…

Maintains that school failure can be prevented if at-risk students are provided with a coordinated set of interventions. Presents recommendations for principals and teachers and describes several successful programs that promote at-risk student learning, including cooperative learning, mentorships, instructional technology, and the whole-language…

Explores the concepts of risk and resilience applied to eighth graders and suggests advantages in considering a definition of risk grounded in actual school performance and behavior rather than to various group-level probabilities of failure. Evidence shows the importance of family supports, school responsiveness to students, and student…

Despite the fact that current reforms in education have placed significant emphases on the integration of computer-based technology in the curriculum and the use of it to improve teaching and learning, researchers reveal that effective technology pedagogy that assists to increase student achievement is not always used in urban and high poverty…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 calls for improving test scores of minority students in third through eighth grades, making middle level schools a key venue for closing the racial gap in achievement. This study, by analyzing data on the 15,000 eighth graders who took the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics,…

This research was conducted using a multi-case study analysis of four school districts in Western Pennsylvania. All four of the school districts were placed under the guidelines of the Educational Empowerment Act (Act 16) due to a history of low tests scores and poor student achievement. These school districts were also place on the State's…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) House Passes Budget Resolution: Prospects of a Compromise with the Senate Appear Dim; (2) Older Students' Science…

The District of Columbia Public Schools has adopted new learning standards for core subjects, including reading/English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies. The new standards show what students should know and be able to do: (1) in each subject; (2) at each grade level; and (3) in every school. This publication guides parents…

This study investigated the performance of 13 graduate students' collaborative efforts toward a group research project in an Instructional Analysis, Design, and Evaluation online course. Gaps between course expectations from the instructor and student collaborative performance were identified through the review of the team agreement, the use of…

An after-school fine arts program was developed at J. W. Sexton High School (Lansing, Michigan), based on the premise that participation in the fine arts, particularly by African Americans, would lead to higher grade point averages and a greater commitment to school life. A review of relevant literature revealed a number of reasons for low…

This guide briefly discusses reading and writing, and then presents 43 strategies for becoming better readers and writers. The guide discusses writing and reading as processes, and lists questions that writers ask and that readers ask. Some of the 43 ways to help students listed in the brochure are: read aloud to students; practice journal…

A program was developed and implemented for use with college freshmen at a community college in southeast Florida whose entrance examination scores fell below the acceptable range for admission into a regular English classroom. These students lacked an adequate background in basic English language skills, had an insufficient understanding of the…

This paper presents a study that examined the effect of an attribution induction on students' performance on a subsequent achievement test. The study was conducted to determine whether an instructor might inculcate desirable attributions as part of a regular classroom interaction and thus improve academic performance in at-risk students. College…

Research has demonstrated that parent involvement has many beneficial effects for students. This action research project designed and implemented a program to raise the academic achievement of second-grade students by increasing parent involvement. The students attended two second-grade classrooms in a west-central Illinois school. The problem of…

The California Literacy Campaign (CLC) is a statewide, community-oriented, library-based adult literacy program initiated by the California State Library in 1984. A key feature is the latitude given individual sites for developing literacy services to meet the needs of the local population. Two evaluations suggested that current learner progress…