The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) educates over 71,000 students in pre-school through grade twelve and impacts the lives of thousands more through the Non-DoD School Program (NDSP) and Local Education Agency grants program. This annual report represents an essential tool for communication and accountability. The purpose of this…

By aligning factors that most commonly influence the achievement of Black and Hispanic students with the type of resources inside the black box of schooling, this study differentiated the achievement effect of school resources from what was brought by students to schools. The hierarchical regression results showed that minority students'…

The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) identified increasing the graduation rate of students with disabilities and decreasing the graduation gap between students with disabilities and all students as its state-identified measurable result (SIMR). To make progress toward the SIMR, the state sought to build the capacity of local education…

While many Americans might agree on the importance of preparing young people for citizenship in a democracy, civic education has been in decline. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show students across all grade levels have a less-than-adequate grasp of the skills and knowledge necessary to engage as citizens. In…

Learning to write is critical in today's world, yet many students are not developing the writing abilities they need to use writing as a powerful tool for learning and for showing what they know. Research indicates that failure to acquire strong writing abilities restricts opportunities for both post-secondary education and employment. This…

The United States is becoming more racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse, yet the educational attainment of various student groups has been very uneven. For decades, educators and policymakers have been focused on minimal competencies rather than advanced achievement. Specifically, federal and state education policies have focused on…

IES is the primary research, evaluation, and statistics arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Established through the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA), the Institute's mission is to expand fundamental knowledge and understanding of education and to provide education leaders and practitioners, parents and students, researchers, and…

Based on current research, many students in the middle grades (6-8) have not performed at their highest academic levels. In 2011, more than one-half of eighth graders in 16 Southern states scored basic or below basic on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Alternatively, effective principal-leaders strategically demonstrated…

The field of dance arts education in the United States is in an entirely different place today than it was at the turn of the century. Much of this change is due to a convergence of events that involved: federal and state legislation, policy, and funding that supported dance in arts education; a forty-year transition of dance out of departments of…

This study focuses on two main issues concerning changes in student attitudes toward science study and their perceptions of its usefulness in their lives. Information has been gathered concerning how student attitudes toward science have changed for teachers and schools not involved with any funded professional development project. Pretesting and…

WestEd, a research and development agency, and ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Career have partnered to develop a framework for college and career readiness. In this article, the authors look at one student's successful journey from high school to college to career, and highlights a career-readiness framework to ensure more…

This report has been provided to the Legislature on an annual basis since the year 2000. This report is issued in the context of a change in focus for the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), the federal agency which oversees the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) implementation in each state. OSEP's new accountability…

Statistics show that American students' reading and writing skills are lagging at a time when literacy skills are needed more than ever. Efforts to address low adolescent literacy levels meet numerous challenges, chief among them is the fact that formal literacy instruction ends for most students after the elementary grades. Career and technical…

National Assessment of Educational Progress data were analyzed to assess differences in reading achievement for Hispanic fourth graders across states with varying policies on language acquisition, controlling for student and school characteristics. Results indicated that (a) both Hispanic English language learner (ELL) and non-ELL students in…

According to national survey data, access to and participation in professional development varies widely across states, and the quality of professional development across most states is far from meeting research-based definitions of effective professional development, with a few pockets of excellence in some states. In this study, "Teacher…