It is critical for countries to ensure that capable secondary school students receive further preparation in advanced mathematics and science, so that they are ready to enter challenging university-level studies that prepare them for careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This group of students will become the…

Over the last 10 to 15 years, a variety of efforts to transform American high schools have gained both public and private support. Significant among these are initiatives to implement Small Learning Communities (SLCs), part of a larger school reform and restructuring effort designed to address a variety of goals, including "downsizing large…

Describes the resistance of a nontraditional public high school, the Durant School, to the global changes that would destroy its local ecology. In this school, the partially successful fight against the imposition of state standards and mandated tests has been a fight to preserve the school's integrity, mission, and autonomy. (SLD)

A study was designed to evaluate the interplay between the California Assessment Program (CAP), the broadest assessment California's students undergo, and one junior high school. The study was conducted at a racially and socioeconomically heterogeneous school in the San Francisco Bay area. Observations were made on the school, department, and…

Education is experiencing a case of misplaced accountability, where an exclusive reliance on high stakes tests overlooks the more subtle judgments of teachers and professional educators and, because of its simplicity, passes as democratic. This article investigates the theoretical underpinnings of current accountability initiatives and draws upon…

This study examined how constructivist teaching and the organization of the learning environment relate to student achievement. The researchers used structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the relationships among school and teaching attributes and student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics as measured by the Washington…

This study is an analysis of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) School Questionnaire administered across three grade levels (grades 4, 8, and 12) during the 1987-88 school year. The data obtained from the school questionnaire represent one level of NAEP's data collection activities, in addition to the teacher questionnaires and…

Every two years the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) administers the DoDEA Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS) to all parents with children attending DoDEA schools and all 4th-12th grade students enrolled in a DoDEA school. Parents were asked to complete one survey for each school in which they had a child enrolled. The purpose of…

The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) Customer Satisfaction Survey is a biennial survey administered by DoDEA to parents and students to monitor DoDEA's success in meeting students' needs. The survey is administered every other year to sponsors with children in pre-kindergarten-12th grade and to students in grades 4-12. For the…

The New York State Education Department conducts a Pupil Evaluation Program (PEP) in which each year all third, sixth, and ninth grade students in the state are given a series of achievement tests in reading and mathematics. The data accumulated by the department includes achievement test scores, teacher characteristics, building and curriculum…

The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) Customer Satisfaction Survey is a biennial survey administered by DoDEA to parents and students to monitor DoDEA's success in meeting students' needs. The survey is administered every other year to sponsors with children in pre-kindergarten--12th grade and to students in grades 4-12. For the…