A chronicle of the success of a small Catholic school on Long Island, N.Y. in overcoming poverty, race, and language for the 65 male students it has served in grades 5-8 for eight years. The authors posit that the secret of the school's success resides in creating goals, agency and pathways for success in its students, creating a climate of hope…

This research project examined student performance in middle schools with a grade configuration of six through eight. Schools were categorized into two groups: high-performing middle schools--middle schools making adequate yearly progress for two consecutive school years, and low-performing middle schools--middle schools not making adequate yearly…

School effectiveness research often uses multilevel models in which only direct effects of characteristics of schools on pupil achievement are modelled. Recently, more attention is given to conceptual models that assume indirect and antecedent effects. In this paper, we elaborate on these models and show that the findings from school effectiveness…