This paper discusses a report released by the Education Department's Office of Inspector General regarding problems in the administration of the government's Reading First Program. Reading First is a $900-million-a-year program that was designed to improve reading instruction in low-income schools in kindergarten through third grade. According to…

In this article, the author shares her accomplishments as the 2006-2007 president of the American Association of School Librarians. Many of her accomplishments help fulfill the goals, objectives, and strategies of the AASL strategic plan. These include the sold-out AASL National Institute on assessment, new innovative reading grants, and its…

This article reports the substance of an interview with Grady R. Hazel, Executive Director of the Society of Louisiana Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). Hazel has been director of the Society of Louisiana CPAs since 1995. The 6,500-member organization is headquartered in Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans. A native of Baton Rouge, Hazel has been…

The Department is pleased to submit this "Report to the Legislature: Academic Support Programs," pursuant to Chapter 61 of the Acts of 2007, line-item 7061-9404. This report provides information regarding Fiscal Year 2008 Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) support for the Classes of 2003-2012 funded through these…

Accelerated middle schools are self-contained academic programs designed to help middle school students who are behind grade level catch up with their age peers. If these students begin high school with other students their age, the hope is that they will be more likely to stay in school and graduate. The programs serve students who are one to two…

Cognition in schizophrenia seems to be characterized by impaired performance on most tests of explicit or declarative learning contrasting with relatively intact performance on most tests of implicit or procedural learning. At the same time there have been conflicting results for studies that have used the Serial Reaction Time (SRT) task to…

The purpose of this article is to describe a general procedure for implementing group poster projects in lower and upper division mathematics courses. The authors have found that students who complete projects gain a deeper understanding of the mathematics they study, refine their ability to communicate mathematically, and engage in an activity…

Practitioners and teachers should be able to justify their chosen techniques by taking into account research results: This is evidence-based practice (EBP). We argue that, specifically, statistical practice and statistics education should be guided by evidence, and we propose statistical cognition (SC) as an integration of theory, research, and…

This research investigates teenagers' perceptions of spirituality. The author considers how far teenage ideas mirrored the many academic theories of spirituality-in-education that have influenced policy makers. Comparisons are made particularly with the theories of four scholars who have dominated the debate over the last twenty years: Jack…

The present article reviews reminiscence research with regard to people with intellectual disabilities. Although the term "reminiscence" is not often used in intellectual disability research, the concept offers a useful framework for charting the different approaches in literature, thanks to its multidisciplinary character and eclectic theoretical…

The North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD) is one of four centers in the United States that work to improve opportunities and quality of life in rural communities. With funding from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the land-grant universities in its 12-state region, the NCRCRD engages Extension…

The purpose of this report is to disseminate the findings from an analysis of the proposals submitted by English councils under the Sustainable Communities Act for England 2007 (SCA), conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) in August/September 2009, as requested by the Local Government Association (LGA). It aims to…

This report discusses the progress of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) evaluation and presents a brief summary of the main findings of the seven distinct topical reports that have been completed for 2007-08--the second year of the evaluation. Those seven specialized reports build on the five reports that were released in 2008 and are:…

This report is the second in a series of annual reports produced by the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) providing descriptive information about the schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). Following a brief history of the MPCP, this year's report contains a set of baseline descriptive statistics about…

The initiative called Setting the Direction for Special Education in Alberta was established in the spring of 2008 and is intended to lead the creation of a new paradigm for special education to serve school authorities in their work to support students with special education needs. The primary aids of of this initiative are to develop a special…