Ever since the 1983 landmark study, "A Nation at Risk", was released, educators have been examining the effectiveness of instructional time in American schools (Pedersen, 2012). However, school calendars have remained stagnant and seemingly a product of society and economy, tied to agriculture, for over 100 years (Turner & Finch,…

This qualitative case study focused on homework as an instructional tool employed by teachers throughout primary schools. A number of stakeholders are affected by homework every day. Those impacted by homework are students and parents in particular, as the people who carry out instructional requests of teachers, but also teachers themselves, who…

This paper reports on the findings of a pilot school-based professional development programme for Tanzanian primary school teachers launched in February 2011 and evaluated in December 2012 by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training with the support of UNICEF. The study set out to investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of the pilot…

The Wallace Foundation is funding a multiyear demonstration project to determine whether voluntary, district summer learning programs can stem summer learning loss for low-income students. Six districts--Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Duval County (Florida), Pittsburgh, and Rochester, New York--were selected for the demonstration project and…

With the advent of No Child Left behind in 2002, public education in the United States entered into a reform movement with mounting consequences and ramifications. This unprecedented federal in-road into public education became the umbrella regulator over programs, staff, budgets and students. The purpose of this quantitative study was to…