The purpose of this action research study is to identify, implement, and evaluate best practices in reading improvement in third grade at Greenleaf Upper Elementary (pseudonym) in support of a process of continuous improvement. The study followed a mixed methods design. The student participants in this study were 47 third grade students who…

Research shows a math achievement gap for at-risk and economically-disadvantaged students in the United States. To address this issue, a Texas school district implemented a 90-minute math block-scheduling program with 8th grade students. Shaped by the academic learning time and social justice theories, the purpose of this quantitative program…

Behavior-focused alternative schools serve students who have been unsuccessful in other school settings due to low academic achievement coupled with significant behavior challenges. In this study, we investigated the effectiveness of secondary behavior-focused alternative schools on four different student outcome variables: (a) school attendance,…

The present study investigates the extent to which a program guided by the principles of critical pedagogy, which seeks to develop "critical consciousness," is associated with the improved academic performance of students attending a low-performance middle-school in Buffalo, New York. The students were enrolled in an in-school academic…

This study used a randomized controlled trial design to investigate the ROOTS curriculum, a 50-lesson kindergarten mathematics intervention. Ten ROOTS-eligible students per classroom (n = 60) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a ROOTS five-student group, a ROOTS two-student group, and a no-treatment control group. Two primary…

Over the past twenty years, efforts to turn around low-performing schools have increasingly become a central component of federal and state education policy agendas. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of the Wraparound Zones Initiative (WAZ), a program supported by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education…

Students from an urban elementary school did not meet criteria on the standardized reading assessment for 3 consecutive years as mandated by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Students were at risk of failing future classes requiring proficiency in reading, and the school did not meet annual yearly progress. To address this problem,…

The article discusses how instead of being parts of a concerted educational reform effort, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the development of charter schools are in fact contradictory initiatives. Basing itself on a theoretical framework that brings together issues inherent to outcome-based school reform and arguments supporting and criticizing…

The Communities In Schools (CIS) Model of Integrated Student Supports aims to reduce dropout rates by providing students with integrated and tiered support services based on their levels of need. The model includes preventive services that are available to all students (Level 1 services) as well as intensive, targeted, and sustained services…

The Communities In Schools (CIS) Model of Integrated Student Supports aims to reduce dropout rates by providing students with integrated and tiered support services based on their levels of need. The model includes preventive services that are available to all students (Level 1 services) as well as intensive, targeted, and sustained services…

City Year is a learning organization committed to the rigorous evaluation of its "Whole School Whole Child" model, which trains and deploys teams of AmeriCorps members to low-performing, urban schools to empower more students to reach their full potential. A third-party study by Policy Studies Associates (PSA) examined the impact of…

Two intervention approaches designed to address the multifaceted academic and cognitive difficulties of low-income children who enter pre-K with very low math knowledge were tested in a randomized experiment. Blocking on classroom, children who met screening criteria were assigned to a Math + Attention condition in which the Pre-Kindergarten…

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive genetic condition that affects both muscle and brain. Children with DMD are at risk of psycho-social difficulties such as poor academic achievement and behavioural and socio-emotional problems. This article by Janet Hoskin and Angela Fawcett, both from the University of Swansea, describes how 34…

As the training of language learners was a main concern of EFL teachers, this study aimed to assess the effectiveness of metacognitive reading strategies instruction (MRSI) on Taif University EFL students who achieved low results in reading. The final sample of this study was (21) female university students. The sample was divided into two groups;…

This article examines the effects of one year of exposure to "Learning to Read in a Healing Classroom" (LRHC) on the reading and math skills of second- to fourth-grade children in the low-income and conflict-affected Democratic Republic of the Congo. LRHC consists of two primary components: teacher resource materials that infuse…