Existing research in the area of educational disadvantage in the Irish context is located either within the historiography of policy in the area or in contemporary macro analysis of dominant trends. The existing canon of research tells us that prolonged periods of unemployment and poorer health outcomes are features of early school leavers, that…

This paper considers an alternative teacher certification pathway known as Teach for Australia (TFA) that is currently operating in the Australian state of Victoria. A discursive approach informed by critical theory is used in the paper to critically examine the specific case of TFA as an alternative teacher certification pathway charged with…

How can schools respond to the call to equip all students with the math skills required in college and the workforce when students are working at widely varying skill levels? Offering extended instructional time in algebra, or double-dose instruction, offers one potential solution to this dilemma and has become an increasingly popular approach for…

Evaluating the impacts of public school funding on student achievement has been an important objective for informing education policymaking but fraught with data and methodological limitations. Findings from prior research have been mixed at best, leaving policymakers with little advice about the benefits of allocating public resources to schools…

This research evaluates the social context of adolescent intervention programs through a critical lens to determine the impact on youth postsecondary decisions with respect to both educational attainment and deviant behavior, further examining the role of education from a social and political perspective. The Education Longitudinal Study 2002/06…

This paper traces the history of a series of early studies designed to identify and document unusually successful compensatory education projects. One of the major characteristics of the early studies is that they were based upon review and analysis of existing literature. Although they used similar data bases they varied considerably in…

The HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) program was started 25 years ago in the belief that educationally disadvantaged students (Title I and learning disabled) were bright and that the top priority for supplemental aid for these students should be to help them channel that innate intelligence into learning at a higher level. The students were…

This handbook is designed to help public school administrators to develop policies and procedures that allow for the appropriate educational placement of preschool children with disabilities in mainstreaming settings. Part I contains background information and materials on legal requirements related to mainstreaming, the efficacy of early…

As the school-age population in the United States becomes increasingly culturally diverse and economically heterogeneous, public schools are confronted with issues of program specialization and social integration. Programs designed for students with special needs often take the form of discrete instructional structures. One consequence of targeted…

Six documents were reviewed and recommendations relevant to the work of the Advisory Committee on Testing in Chapter 1 were summarized. A brief description of a framework for discussing different uses of assessment is followed by specific recommendations from each of the following sources: (1) "Working Paper: Reauthorization of the…

Reflects on the rationale for federal involvement in education (particularly on behalf of the disadvantaged), considers the Reagan Administration's efforts to diminish the federal role, discusses research on the effectiveness of federal initiatives, proposes an appropriate federal role, and examines the impact of existing legislation. (Author/PGD)

These two articles focus on opportunity programs in higher education, the first of which notes that the state of the art of designing and delivering these programs is confused, contradictory, and yet encouraging. Positive and negative research findings and program variation contributes to the confused state of the art. Another problem concerns the…

Australian governments at both federal and state levels have collaborated for the past 15 years to lift Indigenous students from their position as the nation's most educationally disadvantaged group. The introduction in 1989 of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Plan was accompanied by an ambitious target of achieving…

The testimony presented in this report addresses the effects of recent reforms on the achievement of disadvantaged students, their dropout rates, and their enrollments in vocational education. An evaluation of programs in four large-city school districts revealed that educational reform has been neither a disaster nor a boon for the performance of…

Financial, educational, and political accountability issues involved in the Disadvantaged Schools Program, initiated by the Schools Commission to improve the learning outcomes of children from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds in Australia, are the focus of this paper. Consideration is given to the views of the Commission in its published…