The study reported here examined the long term performance of three groups of children who attended the Head Start program in the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools. The students attended Head Start as preschoolers in 1970-71, 1974-75, and 1978-79, and were in grades 4, 8, and 12, respectively, during the 1983-84 school year. The…

Case studies were used to explore parents' role in first-grade reading success of nine at-risk, low-income, Hispanic students in a small, predominantly Hispanic school district in Southern California. Refuting the theory that low achievement results from differences between home and school norms and values, the study found that all 15 parents…

Intended to help teachers prepare students for the Alberta (Canada) Grade 12 diploma examinations, this bulletin updates information about the design, sections, and scoring of the examinations in English 30 and 33 for the 1987-88 school year. Following a summary of the substantial revisions the examinations have undergone for this current edition,…

Twenty-five outstanding middle grade mathematics teachers were selected by the staff of the Middle Grades Mathematics Project (MGMP) at Michigan State University to participate in an Honors Teacher Workshop during the summer of 1987. During the final week of the encounter, 50 colleagues joined the workshop. The participants came from 20 different…

Intended for students taking the Grade 12 Diploma Examinations in English 33 in Alberta, Canada, this test on writing contains general instructions and the following three writing tasks: (1) a personal response to an aspect of literature; (2) functional writing requiring a written response within a given situation or context; and (3) a response to…

Although the existence of small Catholic elementary schools (enrollment: 300 or less) is precarious, these institutions enable students to succeed academically beyond national norms, due to the special learning environment that they provide. The recent Small Schools Survey of Catholic elementary schools indicated that classes in small Catholic…

Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) aim to improve upon previous computer-aided instruction programs by embedding much of the expert knowledge that good human teachers possess. While ITS research has a practical goal of developing programs that assist students in learning, there is little data on their instructional effectiveness. This paper…

This report provides a policy framework for specific programs that will improve the achievement of minority students in the Illinois educational system. All levels of education from pre-kindergarten through graduate education must be involved in designing and making such programs work. Education is the key element that can enable minorities to…

In 1987, one-third of the kindergarten students in the United States were minority. These students will be the pool from which institutions of higher education will draw their college freshmen in the year 2000. The impact of this increase in cultural and ethnic diversity will be pervasive, especially with respect to broadening European-oriented…

This study investigated the "customization" of a standardized achievement test to measure the effect on group and individual scores. "Customization" refers to the modification of an existing test to more closely match test specifications of the entity using the test, usually a state or large school district. Results of an…

The 1980-1981 project sought to extend the dropout prediction methods used previously by using a broader sample and to examine the effectiveness of counseling in dropout prevention. Over 1,200 migrant students in 35 Texas Coastal Bend school districts completed a survey regarding school attitudes, family problems, school participation, financial…

A federally funded program in English as a Second Language involving 516 North and Central American immigrants in two Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., is described. The instruction began in 1981 in three public schools, and had good attendance and high student motivation. The following aspects of the program are outlined and discussed: (1)…

A segment of a study of the acquisition of English literacy among limited English speaking students in selected bilingual education programs examines student characteristics and program elements at one site, among native Cantonese-speaking children. The analysis focused on these issues: (1) the bilingual instructional practices that best foster…

The 1983-1984 evaluation of the TRIO/Special Services program at the University of Minnesota, General College, is presented. Program goals and course descriptions for the integrated course of study are described, as are counseling and tutoring services, student eligibility, and characteristics of program participants. A demographic profile for…

Using a cross-cultural perspective, researchers studied the "math avoidance syndrome," which has reached crisis proportions among American Indians, at two elementary schools on Utah's Northern Ute Reservation and Wisconsin's Oneida Indian Reservation in 1980. Researchers gathered data by observing math instruction at the schools and by…