Middle schools often struggle to provide students with the necessary academic rigor to promote academic growth. Many students experience academic stagnation when schools fail to provide appropriate academic services. Dani Tinkel's article examines how the limited priorities of middle school inadvertently promote disengagement and underachievement…

One way to identify good schools is to look for the schools where teachers want to work. Jeremy Glazer interviewed teachers in one large urban school district who moved from hard-to-staff schools to some of the district's most desirable schools, asking what motivated their moves and why the schools they sought out were attractive to them. These…

Florida's College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI) required schools to administer a community college placement test to 11th-grade students and enroll students who did not pass in a college readiness course. Christine Mokher, James Rosenbaum, Alexis Gable, Caitlin Ahearn, and Louis Jacobson surveyed teachers of the course and found that,…

Although we often look to schools to solve complex social problems, many educators are not ready to address the structural racism behind many contemporary conflicts. Pedro Noguera and Julio Angel Alicia present a brief history of the socioeconomic forces that drove school closures and gentrification in Chicago, the remaking of New Orleans after…

The Mitchell Scarlett Teaching and Learning Collaborative (MSTLC) is a vigorous, six-year-old partnership between two Title I schools--Mitchell Elementary School and Scarlett Middle School in Ann Arbor, Mich.--and the teacher education program at the University of Michigan. MSTLC was formed between educators who had related but quite different…

Project-based learning presents an opportunity to engage both struggling students and high-achieving students. A special education teacher and a principal describe how this worked in one school by sharing the stories of two very different elementary school students. The high-achieving student learned to be more creative and take risks; the…

Answering the question of how a Romney administration would tackle education requires us to keep three things in mind. First, education is a minor issue in this election and would be a secondary concern for a Republican President focused on economic growth, the deficit, tax cuts, and reversing the Affordable Care Act. Second, there are few stark…

To address the chief issues surrounding low achievement of black males in schools one must acknowledge the inability of education systems to accept that there are ways of looking at the world, communication modes, and approaches to teaching that are unique to black males. The author developed five tools for teaching black males: Cogenerative…

Case studies of two high schools that have been turned around from failing to successful show different ways in which failing high schools can be made to succeed. Both high schools concentrated on first helping incoming freshman, and both reforms were driven by data. They differed in staffing and the focus of their first year of reform.

A study of 31 high-performing teachers in low-performing urban schools found that these teachers had certain traits in common. They were strict; they taught in traditional, explicit ways; there was little time in their classrooms when instruction was not occurring; and they moved around the room helping their students. They used very few…

Miami-Dade County Public Schools invested in an intensive, three-year program to improve the learning of students in its 39 lowest-performing schools. Known as the Zone, these schools experienced mixed success, with elementary schools reducing the gap between various groups of students while middle and high schools were less successful. However,…

America's most highly qualified teachers are underrepresented in America's most challenging schools. Across the nation, only about 15% of America's expert teachers teach in high-poverty, underachieving schools. Most expert teachers teach in schools with fewer racial minority students, fewer students from low-income households, and fewer students…

A professor's one-time observation of gifted and low-achieving students at one school leads to a startling conclusion. The gifted students were excessively anxious and unable to think creatively in the face of new problems; the low-achievers demonstrated high levels of creative problem-solving. (Author/WD)

The high school attendance policy instituted in 1977-78 in Malden (Massachusetts) mandated a failing grade of E for the seventh unexcused absence per quarter in each subject. (Author/JM)

Discusses results of a study and report on the academic achievement of low-socioeconomic students. The study, conducted by Johns Hopkins University researchers Alexander, Entwisle, and Olson, appears in summer 2001 issue of "Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis." The report, "Raising Achievement and Reducing Gaps," by…