In 2011 Baltimore City Schools submitted a successful proposal for an Investing in Innovations (i3) grant to offer a three year (2012-2014) summer program designed to expose rising sixth through eighth grade students to VEX robotics. The i3-funded Middle School Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Summer Learning Program was…

The MacPhail Center for Music Online School Partnerships program aims to increase access to high-quality music education for students who attend schools in Greater Minnesota in order to improve student interest and knowledge in music, and to improve or maintain positive school engagement and non-academic skills. The MacPhail Teaching Artists work…

This report presents the findings from interviews with principals about their schools' participation in the ASSISTments efficacy study on seventh-grade mathematics. The purpose of the interviews was to explore the following areas: To what extent schools had policies or expectations regarding homework practice and completion; To what extent schools…

Background: There has been little evaluation of school-located vaccination programs that offer human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in US schools without health centers (ie, extramural programs). This article summarizes lessons learned from such programs. Methods: In July to August 2010, 5 programs were identi?ed. Semistructured, in-depth telephone…

The Kauffman School is a public charter school that serves students from low-income neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri. This paper used a matched comparison group design to estimate the impacts of the Kauffman School on student achievement, attendance, and suspensions. We found that the Kauffman School had positive and statistically…

This case provides principal licensure candidates a strategic perspective on leading and managing educational technology initiatives. It presents issues related to vision setting, planning, implementation, organizational structure, and decision making. The case narrative is presented from the perspective of a principal, but it can also be used to…

By some estimates, students lose an average of 2.6 months of learning during summer break, roughly one quarter of the time spent in school. To combat this problem, the school under study implemented a summer math program that was thematically linked to the Boston Red Sox baseball team. Hundreds of students have participated in the program, but the…

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the Pathways to STEM Initiative (PSI) on students and science teachers and to describe the level of PSI implementation. One group of middle schools participated in PSI, which included project-based science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) coursework; extra-curricular STEM opportunities…

The number of middle level schools adopting 1:1 laptop programs has increased considerably during the past decade (e.g., Lowther, Strahl, Inan, & Bates, 2007; Storz & Hoffman, 2013; Texas Center for Educational Research, 2009). The cornerstone practices of the middle school concept (National Middle School Association, 2010), therefore,…

In accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2001, 100% of students were expected to become proficient on state assessments of reading and mathematics by the end of 2013-2014 academic year. Schools that consistently failed to meet the NCLB's Adequate Yearly Progress requirements were subject to penalties. In 2011, the U.S.…

This article examined the performance of 57 students with learning disabilities (LD) from four middle schools. Students were followed over the course of a school year in their inclusive science classrooms as they alternated between the use of traditional curricular materials for some units of study and materials that were supplemented with video…

This evaluation report describes program outcomes for students in APIE's Middle School Math and College Readiness Coaching Programs in the 2015-2016 school years.

Despite years of implementing standards-based accountability systems, many teachers today lack the necessary preparation to develop standards-based instructional strategies and to inform decisions utilizing student assessments. The eMINTS ("Enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies") National Center at the…

The middle grades are a time of transitions for teenagers. Attending a new school, developing new friendships, meeting new teachers, and becoming more independent are all part of the middle school experience. This article is a case report of a school district's experience using interactive video-conferencing technology to educate and socialize a…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of Achieve3000, a differentiated online literacy curriculum, on students' scores on the California State Test (CST). In the 2011-12 school year, 1,957 students in Chula Vista began using Achieve3000's solutions in 3rd through 8th grade. Using a form of propensity score matching called Inverse…