Summarizes 3 documents and 12 journal articles that discuss programs and classroom efforts in which older students tutor younger children. The programs address literacy and academic subjects including reading, writing, science, and math. (BC)

Presents annotations of eight books, journal articles, and research reports (published between 1991 and 1995) on the topic of helping underachieving readers. (RS)

This Digest focuses on motivating the low performing adolescent in a remedial reading or subject area classroom--the idea is that students who are disengaged from their own learning processes are not likely to perform well in school. The Digest points out that such adolescents are often caught in a cycle of failure and that secondary teachers must…

This monograph in the Urban Diversity Series takes an in-depth look at the nature of academic achievement gaps and the efforts since the 1960s to close these gaps. The monograph provides a comprehensive analysis of achievement data from pre-school through higher education. It concludes with recommendations for developing evidence-based educational…

This digest examines findings from two studies on the minority achievement gap in suburban schools. The first study, by Ronald Ferguson, analyzed data on middle and high school students from the Minority Student Achievement Network. In the second study, John Ogbu investigated how K-12 African American students' identity as an oppressed group…

This digest addresses city and state takeover as a school reform strategy, outlining the emergence of takeover in the past decade, discussing promises and limitations that takeover offers, and synthesizing the research to date on takeover's effectiveness. A notable trend over the past decade is greater implementation of takeover reforms,…

Researchers and educators have begun to question whether Chapter 1 pull-out programs are the most effective method of delivering extra help to the students who need it. Pull-out programs are still the predominating type, but may be declining in popularity as in-class programs gain favor. This document summarizes a variety of program designs which…

This digest provides a critique of the various educational strategies that have been used with Latino students and suggests alternatives that may be more successful. Many educators acknowledge that the reasons for the historic academic underachievement of Latino students could be inappropriate cognitive, cultural, and linguistic teaching methods.…

In February 1990, the President of the United States and the 50 state governors proclaimed a set of six national goals to prompt profound improvements in schools and student achievement by the year 2000. These six goals reflect widely held concerns that most people have not been receiving the kind of education they need to meet the challenges of…

The Center for Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence (CREDE) has developed five standards for effective teaching and learning for all students, including those placed at risk for academic achievement. These standards emerge from principles of practice that have proven successful with majority and minority at-risk students in numerous…

This "letter to teachers" suggests reasons teachers should be interested in research findings. Research findings in several areas are summarized and interpreted so that they are useful to teachers of elementary school mathematics. Among the areas that are highlighted are: (1) time allocation; (2) low achievement; (3) active teaching; (4)…

This publication focuses on the retention/promotion debate regarding failing and low-achieving students. An introductory essay describes the inherent limitation in the research done on this issue--the impossibility of obtaining an appropriate control group--and suggests that the retention/promotion quandary can best be resolved by accommodating…

This issue contains abstracts and critical comments of 10 articles. Studies included focus on sex differences in mathematical learning, intuitive functional concepts, multiple embodiments of place value concepts, instructional activities of high and low achievers, effective management at the beginning of the school year, cross-age peer tutoring,…

Poor, minority, and low ability students suffer most from the general lack of sustained opportunity to study mathematics in American public schools. Studies indicate that preschool and kindergarten students show only minor social class or racial differences in mathematical thinking and that differences in mathematical performance among older…

Turning around a low-performing school is a complex process in which cause-effect relationships are difficult to isolate. But recent interest in helping low-performing schools--spurred on by the reforms mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act--has generated some useful research and thoughtful analysis. This digest explores some of the key…