This study discusses the effectiveness of a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) program spanning grades six through eight in a traditional, urban school district located in Northeastern Ohio. The history and expressed need for STEM education within post-steel producing and economically depressed regions are discussed. Important…

Education in the arts continues to struggle for inclusion in PreK-12 classrooms as public schools face increasing challenges from high stakes testing, Common Core politics, and endless budget cuts. Advocates point to the growing body of research linking art education to academic achievement as justification for arts' continued inclusion in the…

One important question about school discipline is whether it helps or harms those being disciplined. But a second, equally important question is whether a push to reduce the number of suspensions is harmful to the rule-abiding majority. This study examines outcomes in the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), which made dramatic changes to its…

J.C. Nalle is a Community School located in the Marshall Heights neighborhood of Ward 7 in Washington, D.C. The community in which J.C. Nalle is located, historically one of the more economically disadvantaged areas of the city, has experienced a number of changes in recent years. This report of evaluation findings begins with an introduction to…

The purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of a Response to Intervention framework had a positive impact on student reading achievement in urban elementary schools. This was a causal-comparative study that examined the reading performance of a sample of kindergarten through grade three students who experienced the Response to…

Background: To achieve high participation rates and a representative sample, active parent consent procedures require a significant investment of study resources. The purpose of this article is to describe processes and outcomes of utilizing active parent consent procedures with sixth-grade students from urban, ethnically diverse, economically…

Critiques the criticism leveled at Milwaukee's (Wisconsin) four-year-old Parental Choice Program, a program designed to open private school choice through a voucher program. It discusses John Witte's reports which criticize the program and how these reports are flawed and inaccurate depictions of the program's progress and impact. (GLR)

School choice for poor children is likely to be an issue in many state and congressional races. Lawmakers and parents need to pay close attention to the quality of academic evaluations of school choice programs. Evaluations of the program in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) provide a case in point. In 1990, Milwaukee instituted the nation's first publicly…

In 2001, the Institute for Education and Social Policy was awarded a grant to evaluate the Cornerstone K-3 national literacy initiative. The evaluation for September 2001 through November 2002 focused on all four Phase I districts (Cleveland, Ohio; Jackson, Mississippi; Talladega, Alabama; Trenton, New Jersey) and two Phase II districts…

In 1986-87, the school board of the Austin Independent School District approved an assignment plan that returned most elementary students to their neighborhood schools and created 16 predominantly minority schools with many students from low-income families. To assure that these students received a quality education, a 5-year Plan for Educational…

This report reviews school department data and interviews with officials and others involved in the Norfolk (Virginia) school resegregation plan designed to stem White flight and increase parental involvement. The report finds that all the basic assumptions the local community and the court had about the potential benefits of undoing the city's…

The Edison Project, funded under Title VIII of the 1965 Elementary Secondary Education Act, has as its major objectives the reduction of the dropout rate, the increasing of the average daily attendance, the improvement of basic skills, and the development of career awareness. The project has been established as an annex to Edison High School, an…

This paper describes the current state of research on Success for All, a program built around the idea that every child can and must succeed in the early grades. Success for All assumes that every child without organic retardation can read. Requirements for success include prevention and intensive early intervention. Success for All began in one…

From April 1971 to December 1974, a career education project for elementary and secondary grades was conducted in a lower income area of urban Chicago. The general objectives involved the development of a guidance program, integration of occupational information into the classroom, skills training, placement, and attitude adjustment. Career…

Harlem Preparatory School is an independent, nongraded, alternative school for young men and women who have either left high school before receiving a diploma, who wish to receive an academic diploma rather than a general or vocational diploma, or who wish to "recondition" their learning skills so that they may be better prepared to…