Too many freshmen students remain mired in the ninth grade, presenting a growing problem for America's secondary schools as they struggle to improve high school completion rates. In an effort to stem the tide of high school dropouts, a southeast Texas suburban school district with five comprehensive high schools engaged in a systemic reform effort…

Spatial abilities are fundamental to human functioning in the physical world. Spatial reasoning allows people to use concepts of shape, features, and relationships in both concrete and abstract ways, to make and use things in the world, to navigate, and to communicate. Surgeons, pilots, architects, engineers, mechanics, builders, farmers, trades…

A project examined five case studies of workplace literacy initiatives. The research sought to understand better what happens within workplace literacy programs--what are their premises and claims, their curricular stances, and their approach to teaching and learning--with the intent of resolving the basic question of whether vocational…

This paper examines the perceptions of teachers associated with the Brisbane School of Distance Education (Queensland, Australia), concerning their role in the establishment and implementation of a primary education program for children of the Showmen's Guild of Australasia. Interviews with five itinerant teachers revealed that their…

Genuine educational reform depends on developing relationships with the home, community groups, politicians, and the business community (Seeley, 1981). This volume is the second of three reports that are products of a 3.5 year study of education reform, with a focus on the role of parent, family, and community involvement in the middle grades. The…

Solving the challenges of educating language-minority students to the high standards expected of all children requires a willingness to reform the usual practices at many of today's public schools. This volume, the second in a series of three, presents findings of a study that examined exemplary school-reform efforts involving the education of…

More than one-fifth of American school-age children and youth come from language-minority families--homes in which languages other than English are spoken. This volume, the last in a series of three, describes the research design and methodology for a study that examined exemplary school-reform efforts involving the education of limited…

An Undergraduate Research Fund (URF) at Indiana University South Bend that has supported over 100 projects and distributed over $25,000 to students since 1989 has yielded several lessons regarding the program's success. URF not only funded student projects but provided small grants to faculty mentors who encouraged and worked with students. Three…

A study was undertaken at Willmar Community College (WCC), in Minnesota, to assess the effectiveness of the developmental writing program and to identify which demographic and educational characteristics predicted final grades in college-level English courses. The study sample included all students who enrolled at WCC during the 1992-93 academic…

Resulting from the Center for Adolescent Literacy's investigation of reading programs that refuse to tolerate acquiescence to the inevitability of reading failure, the second edition of this book describes what works and why in adolescent literacy, through case studies and through observations gleaned from extensive literature searches and site…

The Multimedia and Literature Teaching and Learning project was initiated to explore the potential of multimedia and hypermedia for supporting the response-based teaching and learning of literature. The project's initial phase involved developing criteria for considering hypermedia from a response-based perspective and then applying these to a…

The Goodwill Literacy Initiative evaluated its services during the 1994-95 program year. This time frame was chosen because several program enhancements were implemented that reflect the literacy initiative's mission to combine adult basic education with work force development. Three developments were aimed at student retention: a formal…

The report describes and evaluates a 10-week program to help an adjudicated 18-year-old male with behavioral disorders living in a structured residential treatment facility to develop independent living skills. The experimental program consisted of three levels, each offering more independence, while providing support, guidance, and direction to…

The effectiveness of the Saturation Work Initiative Model (SWIM) was evaluated after its fifth year of operation in San Diego. Data on SWIM on participants' employment, earnings, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) receipt were compared to those persons in one of several control groups consisting of members of the AFDC-unemployed…

This pamphlet examines the Writing-to-Learn project of the University of Tennessee (Knoxville), a writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) program. The WAC theory is first discussed in terms of three primary approaches to linguistic behavior as reflected in three predominant attitudes toward composition theory in use today: the traditional, the…