An urban school district developed strategies for recruiting and retaining minority teachers. Examination of data on teachers hired over a 3-year period found the retention rate for African American teachers was slightly higher than that of European American teachers. Teachers with at least 3 years' experience in the district were surveyed as to…

The 2016 edition of the "Digest of Education Statistics" is the 52nd in a series of publications initiated in 1962. The "Digest" has been issued annually except for combined editions for the years 1977-78, 1983-84, and 1985-86. Its primary purpose is to provide a compilation of statistical information covering the broad field…

The Tesseract Schools in Baltimore City are nine public schools operated by The Alliance for Schools That Work, an association of for-profit businesses. This document contains findings of a program evaluation of grades 1-5 conducted by the University of Maryland at Baltimore City. The study compared seven Tesseract elementary schools with a…

Assigning letter grades in a consistent manner to tests in large classes across semesters is problematic if absolute grading standards are used. It may be unreasonable to implement the usual standard-setting approaches recommended for large-scale criterion-referenced testing due to both time constraints and a desire to have criteria that appear…

This paper presents a resolution passed by the New York State United Teachers calling on New York State to adopt a "Reading for Life" plan. Also, included is a letter to Chancellor Carl T. Hayden discussing the resolution and recommendations on changes in high school graduation requirements. The paper first sets out the resolution on the…

Based on the comparison of a regular-sized (n=25) and an oversized (n=54) class of college students taught by the same instructor, significant superior performance was found in favor of the large class. This disparity persisted even when a switching regression model (with endogenous switching) was performed. Only 39% of the learning disparity can…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined the relationship between the performance (as measured by test results) of pupils in classrooms with full-time teacher aides. The Student Teacher Achievement Ratio project (STAR) was implemented in Tennessee from 1985 through 1989 to study the effects of class size on student achievement and…

When California implemented its class-size reduction (CSR) program in 1996, a number of questions regarding financial burdens, teacher shortages, scarcity of facilities, and collective bargaining were raised. This first-year implementation study aims to provide some contextual information as background for answering questions, to clarify these…

This book deals with the challenges of teaching large classes at institutions of higher learning, and addresses such issues as how instruction can be personalized and made more interactive with large numbers of students. The material for the book arose out of a "large classes project" at the University of Maryland, where the subject was…

A survey of special education class size completed by 70% of the states resulted in tables depicting class size guidelines for a number of types of handicapping conditions: hearing impairments, multiple handicaps, mental retardation, orthopedic handicaps, profound handicaps, serious emotional disturbance, speech/language disability, and visual…

Teacher's perceptions of their experiences in teaching small classes or with a full-time teacher's aide are discussed in this report. The study reported was part of Tennessee's Project STAR: a 4-year, longitudinal demonstration policy study. Analyses were conducted on interviews with 86 teachers of small second grade classes, 54 teachers of second…

This paper results from the Oregon Action Plan for Excellence, which defines goals and outcomes of the K-12 school experience. This Physical Education Concept Paper, the first of a series, is presented as a challenge to Oregon physical educators to confront constructively and resolve issues with implications for school physical education programs.…

A review of literature on class size is the purpose of this report. Included are a summary of four meta analyses (Robinson and Wittebols 1986), (Cone 1978), and (Glass and Smith 1978 and 1979); a discussion of research methodologies; recommendations for policy makers; and alternative strategies for class size reduction. Appendices present…

This digest focuses on the articulation of foreign language programs between secondary and higher education. The following questions are addressed: (1) What are urgent reasons for better program articulation?; (2) What forms does articulation take?; (3) What aspects of the educational process does articulation address?; (4) Are there examples of…

This study was designed to determine the effect class size had on the reading achievement of first grade students. During a review of the literature, identified studies were analyzed for evidences of impact on student reading achievement, the instructional program, operational expenditures, and classroom space. The Virginia Beach research study…