Every educator has a handful of students who perpetually push his or her buttons. The challenge of creating a strong, nurturing classroom community is especially difficult if you are an urban school teacher. Not because children in an urban area are inherently more wild or difficult to teach. Rather, there is a mythology about how to best…

An ongoing challenge that both classroom and physical education teachers face on a daily basis is how to organize and manage large groups of students. This is particularly true in many urban settings where classrooms and gymnasiums are typically understaffed and/or under equipped. Educators in these settings often struggle with how to minimize…

In today's heterogeneous classrooms, one-method-fits-all-students behavior management approaches are ineffective and often harmful. To succeed with all of their students, teachers should determine whether students have emotional disorders, conduct/behavior disorders, robust male-typical behavior patterns, culturally influenced behavior, learning…

This study examined the effectiveness of the First Step to Success (FSS) early intervention program with four Native-American students, their teachers, and their parents on (a) targeted students' problem behaviors, (b) class-wide student behaviors, and (c) teacher behaviors. Participant teachers and parents were also interviewed to gather their…

Dealing with the behavioral and academic problems of children with co-occurring learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) can be challenge for educators. One characteristic often associated with AD/HD is an inability to remain engaged in tasks for long periods of time. This lack of attentional focus often results…

This study examined the effects of increasing task difficulty when inadequately challenging tasks are assigned. Jason, a 10-year-old, typically developing Caucasian boy, attended a fourth-grade general education classroom at a public elementary school. During independent academic assignments in math and reading, Jason often talked with other…

Schools have widely used suspension and related punitive practices, in spite of their proven ineffectiveness. This article discusses the role of Aggression Replacement Training (ART) as part of a schoolwide positive behavior support initiative. Grounded in theory and research, ART focuses on the proactive teaching of acceptable behaviors to…

"Alabama Education News" is published monthly except for June, July, and December by the Alabama Department of Education. This publication, authorized by Section 16-2-4 of the "Code of Alabama", as recompiled in 1975, is a public service of the Alabama Department of Education designed to inform citizens and educators about…

A group of fifth-grade students who had persistent problems at lunch and recess were identified and provided with direct instruction in pro-social skills. These skills were taught by the authors in a two-week program that they called the "Alternative to Lunch Program for Students" (ALPS). This action research study measured the impact of…

Background: The evidence is now quite clear that bullying in schools is an international problem. Bullying is widely regarded as a particularly destructive form of aggression, with harmful physical, social and emotional outcomes for all involved (bullies, victims and bystanders), and with particular risks for children with special needs. The…

The purpose of this pilot study was to review the effects of professional staff training in crisis management and de-escalation techniques on the use of seclusion timeout and restraint procedures with at-risk students in a K-12 special day school. An exploratory pre-post study was conducted over a two-year period, comparing the use of these…

This study evaluates the effectiveness of school-home notes for increasing academic productivity and on-task behavior of low-income, African American children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Using a withdrawal, alternating treatments design, each student received school-home notes with and without a response cost…

Responding to disruptive or troubled pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties (EBD) remains a highly topical issue. The challenges these children present relate to wider issues of continuing political concern: the perceived declining discipline in schools; school and social exclusion; the limits to inclusion for children with special…

This paper presents the first evidence of the effects of school accountability systems on the long-term human capital development of high-performing, college-bound students. The results are mixed. On the one hand, the evidence is consistent that school accountability sanction threats are associated with changes in student study habits. Students…

Background: Many responses to students whose behaviour is considered unacceptable at school fail because they treat young people as isolated individuals and do not operate in the context of the community of people who know and care about them. In some parts of the world there is a move towards exploring how to support such students by moving away…