Teachers across the United States struggle with meeting students' needs in their classrooms amidst the growing diversity of children in their classrooms and the amplification of standardized testing. Time and again, teaching with the heart and action of inclusivity is placed on the back burner as teachers feel the pressure for students to perform…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates that all school districts provide a free appropriate public education to students with Individualized Education Plans in their least restrictive environment. Co-teaching in inclusion classrooms is a collaborative effort, with a general education teacher and a special education teacher, to…

One goal of standards-based accountability is to align educator behaviors with the improvement of student achievement. Yet, prior work suggests that standards-based accountability has negatively affected some educational processes, such as narrowing the curriculum and reducing instructional quality. Panel data from middle grades math teachers…

Background/Context: There is a convergence of evidence that the quality of children's early care and education (ECE) experiences is critical for promoting children's development (Gormley, Phillips, & Gayer, 2008). Curriculum combined with professional development is thought to be the "strongest hope" for promoting quality (Weiland…

Success Maker is an educational software that differentiates and personalizes K-8 reading and math. Limited research has been conducted on the impact of Success Maker on Grade 4 math state tests. At the research site, located in southeastern United States, 33.7% of fourth grade students did not pass the Palmetto Assessment of State Standards…

In California, at the time of this study, the CAHSEE determined if a student will graduate with a high school diploma or receive a certificate of completion of high school requirements. Although students may have completed all their high school credits, if they do not pass the CAHSEE, then the student will not receive a high school diploma or a…

The purpose of this article is to share information related to the emergence of mathematics renewal (i.e., enhancing teacher instruction) for struggling learners within an elementary PDS. Specifically, background related to the PDS and three phases of the renewal process are discussed (i.e., identification of needs, implementation of new…

We examined whether a theoretically based number board game could be translated into a practical classroom activity that improves Head Start children's numerical knowledge. Playing the number board game as a small group learning activity promoted low-income children's number line estimation, magnitude comparison, numeral identification, and…

Observation measures of instructional quality tend to fall into two broad categories--those for use across subject areas and those intended for use in specific subject areas. The move toward content-specific measures is a result of research suggesting that effective teaching looks different across subject areas and that both content knowledge and…

This paper describes 27 National Science Foundation supported grant projects that have innovations designed to improve teaching and learning in introductory statistics courses. The characteristics of these projects are compared with the six recommendations given in the "Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE)…

Because schools are held accountable for the academic performance of all students, it is important to focus on academics and the need for effective teaching practices. Adequate yearly progress, a method of accountability that is part of the No Child Left Behind Act (2001), profoundly affects the education of students who have emotional and…

The purpose of this study was to identify factors associated with the growing use of teacher specialists in the elementary schools, particularly in the area of mathematics. The elementary school principals of a large metropolitan school district located in northeastern Florida responded to an online survey that focused on the type of specialist…

This paper describes 25 National Science Foundation supported projects that have innovations designed to improve education for students majoring or minoring in statistics. The characteristics of these projects and the common themes which emerge are compared with the American Statistical Association's (ASA) guidelines for developing statistics…

A year and a half ago, President Bush proposed creating a new federal mathematics effort that would offer millions of dollars in grants to school districts to adopt proven strategies for improving classroom instruction in that subject. Administration officials had pictured the new program, called Math Now, as being modeled on Reading First, the $1…

The report, "The Ready to Teach Program: A Federal Initiative in Support of Online Courses for Teachers", describes the history of the Ready to Teach Program and its role as one of the solutions to the national need to increase the performance of teachers through professional development. The report describes selected findings from the Eisenhower…