States have made dramatic progress in the past few years in implementing longitudinal data systems (LDS) to improve student achievement. These systems collect and house student educational data that make it easy for policymakers and practitioners to access and use it for reporting, policymaking and decision making. So much has happened in states…

When a survey of students at Eisenhower Middle School in Everett, Washington indicated that they spent a good part of the school day feeling tired and hungry, that they felt unsafe in some areas of the school, and that worn-down facilities left many of them feeling depressed, the author and his staff concluded that, in order to improve the…

Peer-mediated instruction holds particular promise as an effective educational strategy for children with learning disabilities. When properly implemented, peer-mediated instructional approaches permit active engagement, frequent opportunities to respond, immediate error correction, prompt feedback on the correctness of responses, and motivational…

The federal Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, project strives to equalize low-income students' access to higher education by increasing their participation in rigorous coursework, providing expanded opportunities for low-income students and parents to learn about postsecondary educational opportunities…

This report presents an evaluation of the Medford, Massachusetts, Language, Education, Acceleration Program (Project LEAP) for the 1979-80 school year. The first section presents findings of evaluator observations during program implementation. The second section reports findings from quantitative measures: standardized tests,…

Students with disabilities have made great strides in the classroom over the past three decades, sparked by the passage of the "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)." This revolutionary law paved the way for children with disabilities to enjoy full access to educational opportunities. Another revolutionary law, the "No…

This policy brief reviews the evolution of comprehensive school reform (CSR) and the development of CSR models, describes the AEL-CREP (Center for Research in Educational Policy) research project and its findings, and discusses policy implications. Over the past 2 decades, CSR has evolved from theory to pilot project to mandate to widespread…

Educators devoted to school reform focus all too often on the isolated components of K-12 education. The author of this book contends that the focus really should be on the interdependence of variables that affect student learning, both inside and outside the classroom. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 introduces the Four Cycles Model…

The Shaperville Academic Recognition Program is a district-wide program for the encouragement and recognition of academic excellence and an attempt to instill in students a natural respect for academic achievement. This article describes its development and implementation from conception to planned obsolescence due to successful reformation of…

As the limited success of Boston Public Schools' Compact shows, school-business partnerships need to consider the time interval between investment and results. Several partnerships focusing on particular portions of the curriculum have had remarkable effects. A sidebar provides general guidelines for establishing school-business partnerships.…

Despite the growing popularity of Madeline Hunter's Program for Effective Teaching staff development model, there is little evidence that student achievement increases after such a program has been implemented. A recent study of South Carolina achievement test data corroborates this assertion. Coaching length and quality may be key factors in…

Conducted an impact study of the Onward to Excellence (OTE) school-improvement process in 33 elementary, middle, and high schools in rural high-poverty areas in Mississippi. OTE implementation was weak and uneven, and student achievement showed no pattern of change in OTE schools. The four schools with the highest implementation showed somewhat…

Studies indicate that group work accompanied by the cooperative learning elements of individual accountability and structured independence among group members enhances student achievement. This article illustrates the implementation of a specific type of cooperative learning project called group investigation. The project is based on Slavin's…

We report an approach for implementing predictive fuzzy systems that manage capturing both the imprecision of the empirically induced classifications and the imprecision of the intuitive linguistic expressions via the extensive use of fuzzy sets. From end-users' point of view, the approach enables encapsulating the technical details of the…

A quasi-experimental study designed to provide evidence of the effectiveness of the "Jamestown Reading Navigator" ("JRN") program for students in grades 9-10 was conducted in the Miami Dade Public School District (MDCSD). "Jamestown Reading Navigator" is a reading intervention program developed by McGraw-Hill…