Knowing what students should be able to accomplish academically is the first step in knowing how to write accurate Individual Education Plan (IEP) goals. By giving students short Curriculum-Based Measurements (CBM) in areas such as reading, writing, and mathematics, teachers are able to determine current level of performance, or baseline. Teachers…

In August 2009, the U.S. Department of Education announced opportunities for states and local educational agencies to vie for $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement Grants targeted at turning around or closing down chronically low-achieving schools. To qualify for a portion of these funds, school districts were required to implement one of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of leadership on student achievement and sustained school success, especially in challenging, high-poverty schools. Design/methodology/approach: The paper combines a review of the leadership literature with findings drawn from longitudinal studies of the International Successful School…

This study aimed to identify the classroom and school characteristics that are associated with student achievement in mathematics and Serbian language in primary schools in Serbia. The study sample consisted of 119 public primary schools, 253 classrooms, and 4,857 third-grade students. Variables from 3 past research paradigms--input-output,…

Does public information about school quality lead parents to sort their children out of schools with relatively poor performance? Use of this exit option in response to information about school quality has the potential to indirectly foster school responsiveness to quality concerns. To determine whether this information affects student exit, I…

In "Approaches to Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness: A Research Synthesis" published by the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (TQ Center), ways of evaluating teachers were compared (Goe, Bell, & Little, 2008). This brief compares two of the methods discussed in that synthesis--value-added measures and classroom observations--and…

High-performing middle schools are a critical link in the educational continuum. In an effort to stimulate the sluggish reform efforts of middle schools, the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform established the Schools to Watch recognition program. Using responses of school personnel to a statewide survey, this study examined the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show how increasing teacher effectiveness is central to school efforts to improve student outcomes. This study aims to examine successive teachers' effects on student achievement. The premise advanced is that teacher effectiveness is an individual resource that varies across classrooms within schools, as…

Traditionally, K-5 students' writing has had a primarily academic aim--to help students master concepts and express themselves. Even if students take a professional writing course later, they typically do not have the opportunity to practice--over the long period of time mastery requires--the non-academic writing skills they will be required to…

This article provides a description of the birth of The Odyssey Initiative. As teachers, this group of three, all educators, knew that there was outrage about the state of education in America. Griping about our nation's schools has almost become a pastime, and with very good reason. However, they found the solutions being offered to save our…

African American males consistently perform at significantly lower academic levels, than their peers, at every age level and on almost every national assessment (Lewis, Simon, Uzzell, Horwitz, & Casserly, 2010; Harvey, 2010; Tsoi-A-Fatt, 2010; Fergus & Noguera, 2010), and of all racial/ethnic and gender groups, African American males…

This report presents Special Education Indicator Performance data tables for 174 Bureau of Indian Education schools. Indicators include: (1) Graduation Rate; (2) Dropouts; (3) Assessment Targets; (4) Assessment Targets--Reading; (5) Assessment Targets--Mathematics; (6) Suspensions and Expulsions--High School; (7) Suspensions and…

In this paper we consider the challenges involved in evaluating teacher preparation programs when controlling for school contextual bias. Including school fixed effects in the achievement models used to estimate preparation program effects controls for school environment by relying on differences among student outcomes within the same schools to…

The State, Territory and Commonwealth Ministers of Education met as the 11th Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) in Sydney, 30-31 March 2000, chaired by the Commonwealth Minister for Education, Training and Youth Affairs, the Honorable Dr. David Kemp MP. Conscious that the achievement of educational…

This book will reset the discourse on charter schooling by systematically exploring the gap between the promise and the performance of charter schools. The authors do not defend the public school system, which for decades has failed primarily poor children of color. Instead, they use empirical evidence to determine whether charter schooling offers…