This study explored the role of elementary parent involvement coordinators (EPIC) in a Northeast Georgia Title I Charter School District. EPICs were charged with facilitating programs designed to build social capital and network closure for families. This nested case study explored the experiences of five EPICs, each located in one of the five…

The rural elementary principal has the ultimate responsibility for bringing all stakeholders together to focus and improve student achievement. In doing so, they must be able to provide knowledge of national, state, and local policies that influence achievement. Response to Intervention is a tiered framework for school's to provide…

A brief history of NCLB and the resultant scripted reading programs shows how hollow these fixes are when you eliminate teacher responsibility, professional judgment, and flexibility. The authors caution, "In some cases, we do think that these programs can be successful, but only if the teacher has the power as an educator to adjust the…

Over the past several decades, researchers, politicians, and corporate leaders have focused reform efforts on the size of educational contexts. Hundreds of billions of public and private dollars have been invested to reduce the size and scope of both classrooms and schools (Lee & Ready, 2007). Unlike many education reforms, these downsizing…

A short form of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children--Revised was administered to 63 disadvantaged minority group children under either self-monitoring feedback for correct or incorrect responses, standardized administration, or a pretest vicarious experience of a minority child being administered a test by a female Anglo examiner. (Author)

Parkdale Elementary is a K-5 school of approximately 260 students, of which 75 percent are on the free and reduced-cost lunch and breakfast program and 65 percent are Hispanic, largely migrant families.

Argues that James Coleman's findings from his recent study are misleading because Coleman measures equality of opportunity in terms of percentages of Black and White students and ignores inequalities in treatment, policy, and curriculum. Urges minority leaders to establish schools to serve as beacons to public schools that are failing. (Author/WD)

Recommends a constructivist approach to reading instruction. Argues that (1) ownership is the overarching goal of the curriculum; (2) constructivist approaches improve word identification and higher-level thinking; (3) phonics instruction should be properly timed; (4) writing makes a significant contribution to children's learning of phonics; and…

Results suggest some progress in formulating educational environments that reduce the level of school fearfulness among black children. Other studies should explore the differences in classroom atmosphere that nediate these encouraging results; i.e. patterns of pupil-teacher and pupil-pupil interaction. (Author/AM)

Describes the economic and educational achievements of Asian American immigrants to the United States. Criticizes current theories of the causes of Asian American achievement, and posits that family structure, along with middleman and niche theories of migration, may explain their success. (SKC)

A study investigated the effects of the placement of five economically disadvantaged minority students, who were identified in kindergarten as potentially academically gifted through nontraditional means, in a gifted school. Six-year follow-up data suggest that the student's academic careers have for the most part progressed well. Performance…

This booklet outlines procedures for evaluating a school district's writing program that was designed to overcome the adverse educational and social effects of minority group isolation by improving the academic achievement of minority group students. The first section describes how the writing program addressed three of the school district's…

Relationship between WISC-R subtest scores and Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs was investigated for a sample comprised of rural Appalachian children. The sample was comprised of both white and black children culturally different by virtue of low family income and residence in mountainous areas of Virginia and North Carolina. (Author)

Summarizes 15 years of National Assessment of Educational Progress data on reading and writing in elementary schools. While reading performance has improved over the 1971-1984 period for black and Hispanic 9- and 13-year-olds and for younger disadvantaged children, writing results are less encouraging. Effective writing instruction may require…

Intergroup cooperation and competition were compared to determine if they promoted systematic differences in interaction between majority and minority students. Results indicated that the intergroup cooperation condition produced increased numbers of cross-ethnic relationships. (Author/DF)