A small group of high-performing East Asian economies dominate the top of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings. This has caught the attention of Western policymakers, who want to know why East Asian children obtain such high PISA scores, and what can be done to replicate their success. In this paper I investigate…

African American students are not achieving at the rate and in a manner consistent with their peers. News headlines continue to report a dismal future for the American education system as a whole and for students of color, specifically (Layton, 2014). Scholars have addressed the problem of academic achievement for students of color for decades,…

Overrepresentation of African American students in special education has been related to the unfavorable academic outcomes and achievement gap for these students. In a search for a comprehensive account of the roots of these perpetuating concerns, narrative skills are of importance because of their relation to reading achievement and school…

Practice and Policy: The preschool years represent a critical time to foster family engagement in education for children growing up in poverty. Yet the ways in which Latino families with lower levels of income engage with their children's education at home and at school might look different from how middle-income parents from the dominant U.S.…

In this piece we examine educational gaps among Iraqi refugee students while living in Iraq and while in transitional countries, challenges resulting from those educational gaps since they have arrived in the United States, and Iraqi students' needs to overcome their challenges for school adjustment. Thirty Chaldean Iraqi refugees who attended…

Current literature has identified a growing achievement gap experienced by students raised in poverty. However, some students from poverty can defeat the odds and succeed academically with advanced degrees. Nine graduate students self-identified as being raised in poverty participated in this study. The home-related experiences that led to their…

English as an additional language (EAL) and language diversity attract much interest amongst policymakers and educationists; yet little is known about the performance in English schools of EAL pupils who are not fluent in English and speak different languages at home. The findings of the aggregated data confirm that EAL pupils achieved less well…

The effect of composition may be strong in systems where students are systematically sorted based on their socio-economic background. This paper aims to model the differential effect of class composition on pupils' achievement in Belgium (French-speaking Community), France, Spain and Portugal. Multilevel models are consequently tested on the…

Background: UK government policy views collaboration with outstanding schools as a way of helping apparently less successful schools to close the attainment gap. However, there has been little debate about criteria for defining a school's success or failure. Moreover it is unclear which aspects of outstanding schools could readily transfer to…

The achievement gap continues to widen between White and Asian students and ethnic minorities, students of low socio-economic status, and English Language Learners. In an attempt to level the playing field amongst these groups, numerous researchers recommend professional learning communities (PLCs) as a strategy for school improvement and…

The Office of Shared Accountability (OSA) in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) conducted a study to examine the impact of student poverty on student achievement. This is the first study in MCPS to examine student poverty longitudinally. Using longitudinal data, students enrolled in Free and Reduced-priced Meals System (FARMS) services every…

Based on current research and preliminary results provided by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) regarding the West Virginia Early Learning Longitudinal Study, the West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) Office of Early & Elementary has reviewed the NIEER and other forms of data to make a concerted action plan.…

The academic achievement gap for African American students compared to their White counterparts has historically and currently remained significant. Many researchers have been prompted to address this issue by examining the practices utilized to teach African American students. The findings from this study suggest that when teachers move away from…

As a result of the Every Student Succeeds Act and its requirement that students in foster care be included in education report cards, states have a renewed sense of urgency surrounding accountability for the academic achievement of this vulnerable group of students. This study examined the effects of placement and school stability on students'…

We apply a utilization-focused evaluation [UFE] approach to an evaluation of Virginia's latest comprehensive accountability policy--the Standards of Accreditation (SOA). Our study focuses on the implementation experiences of district and high school level administrators in four urban districts. This study is significant in two important ways.…