The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires that schools maintain policies, strategies, and practices that support parental involvement in the education of all children (No Child Left Behind [NCLB], 2002). Houtenville and Conway (2008) found that by implementing strategies which promote family engagement in the educational process, schools can…

Based on a qualitative study of an urban middle school, this article examines student perceptions of shifting tracking structures following the dismantling of a school's bilingual education program. The article demonstrates that students understood the school changes based on supposed language needs through an explicitly racialized lens, thereby…

Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) developed this language access toolkit to share the expertise and experiences of National Asian American Education Advocates Network (NAAEA) member organizations with other community organizations interested in developing language access campaigns. This toolkit includes an overview of…

In this article, we analyzed past and present research studies in which investigators examined differences in academic achievement between students who were White and non-White (i.e., specifically Hispanic or students designated as Limited English Proficient). As anticipated, the majority of the researchers whose studies were analyzed reported…

Asian American students, who comprise almost 5% of public school students in the U.S., are a very diverse group. In the aggregate, Asian Americans often have the highest achievement on state tests among major racial/ethnic subgroups. But this overall high performance can sometimes lead educators and policymakers to overlook the needs of…

No Child Left Behind's mandated high-stakes testing and accountability policies have pervaded districts and schools nationwide. To examine student progress and graduation in the midst of first generation Texas-style accountability, this study tracked individuals in a longitudinal dataset of over 45,000 high school students in the Houston…

The School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, initially enacted as part of the "No Child Left Behind" amendments to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, underwent a substantial transformation under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Under the new program, states identified 2,172 persistently low-achieving schools…

Background/Context: The United States is currently undergoing a period of unprecedented immigration, with the majority of new arrivals coming from Asia and Latin America, not Europe. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (APIs) represent the fastest growing racial group in the United States, and schools are again being asked to socialize newcomer…

One out of every six public school students in the U.S. is African American. The achievement of African American students as a group will have a significant impact on the nation's economic strength and social well-being. This brief looks at the performance of African American students on state reading and mathematics tests and considers the policy…

In grade 8 (the only grade in which subgroup trends were analyzed by achievement level), Missouri showed across-the-board gains--improvements in both reading and math at the basic, proficient and advanced levels for all racial/ethnic subgroups, low income students, and boys and girls. Results on achievement gaps were mixed. Comparable data were…

This paper profiles the student subgroup achievement and gap trends in Ohio for 2010. In grade 8 math (the only grade in which subgroup trends were analyzed by achievement level), Ohio showed a clear trend of gains for all major subgroups at the basic-and-above, proficient-and-above, and advanced levels, with one exception. In grade 8 reading,…

This paper profiles the student subgroup achievement and gap trends in Mississippi for 2010. Mississippi made changes to its state testing program in the 2007-08 school year. Therefore, subgroup and achievement gap trends could not be calculated because fewer than three consecutive years of data were available, too short a period to constitute a…

This paper profiles the student subgroup achievement and gap trends in Nevada for 2010. In grade 8 (the only grade in which subgroup trends were analyzed by achievement level), Nevada showed across-the-board gains--improvements in both reading and math at the basic, proficient and advanced levels for all racial/ethnic subgroups, low income…

In New Jersey, achievement gaps narrowed in grade 11 reading and math for all major subgroups, with one exception. Comparable data for grade 11 by subgroup were available for 2002-2009, with a few exceptions. Because the state changed its tests at grades 4 and 8 in recent years, there were too few years of comparable data to determine trends at…

This paper profiles the student subgroup achievement and gap trends in North Carolina for 2010. In grade 8 math (the only grade in which subgroup trends were analyzed by achievement level), North Carolina made gains across the board for all major subgroups at the basic-and-above, proficient-and-above, and advanced levels. Progress in narrowing…