This report is the second in a series of policy papers on the education of educators. It identifies several model teacher education programs, but also finds that the majority of the nation's teachers are prepared in programs that have low admission and graduation standards and cling to an outdated vision of teacher education. Both state…

The College Board formed a research consortium with four-year colleges and universities to build a national higher education database with the primary goal of validating the SAT®, which is used in college admission and consists of three sections: critical reading (SAT-CR), mathematics (SAT-M) and writing (SAT-W). This report builds on a body of…

Using a life course framework, we examine the early life origins of the race gap in men's all-cause mortality. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men (1966-1990), we evaluate major social pathways by which early life conditions differentiate the mortality experiences of blacks and whites. Our findings indicate that early life…

This study utilized data from the "NCES Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS 96/01)" to explore the 6-year persistence status of Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) students seeking the bachelor's degree at four-year institutions irrespective of whether they had remained at their initial institution, transferred, temporarily…

Family and child care experiences from birth to 54 months, achievement and social competence at entry to school, maternal sensitivity at first grade, and qualities of first-grade classrooms were used to predict academic and cognitive functioning at first grade for 832 children enrolled in the National Institute of Child Health and Human…

THIS REPORT PRESENTS CORRELATIONAL AND REGRESSION ANALYSES OF VARIOUS COMBINATIONS OF SUBSETS OF NINTH-GRADE STUDENT BODY AND SCHOOL VARIABLES FROM THE EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES SURVEY (COLEMAN REPORT), IN AN ATTEMPT TO ISOLATE DIFFERENT SCHOOL INDEXES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO ACHIEVEMENT. IT IS HOPED THAT THE INDEXES OBTAINED FROM THE 400 ORIGINAL…

Background: The overall goal of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 is to close, by the end of the 2013-2014 academic year, "the achievement gap between high- and low- performing students, especially the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students and, between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers"…

This report examines patterns of child care use in 2000-2001 for children ages 0-5 who were not yet enrolled in kindergarten or first grade. Specifically, the report examines whether or not non-parental child care was used, the primary type of child care used, the amount of child care used per week, the number of arrangements, the cost of care,…

"Entering the Mainstream: The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States, 2003 and 2004" represents the second annual study of the state of online education in U.S. Higher Education. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, this year's study, like last year's, is aimed at answering some of the fundamental questions about the…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has increased the role of assessment in K-12 education. Designed to ensure that all students meet high academic standards, the law currently requires states receiving Title I funds to test all children annually in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and report student performance disaggregated by poverty,…

Background: It is not known if the prevalence of parental psychiatric disorders is higher in stepfather than intact families, or if parental alcoholism is differentially associated with risk for conduct disorder (CD) symptoms in stepfather families versus intact families. Method: The sample comprised 839 girls and 741 boys from 792 intact families…

While policymakers have granted a substantial commitment of resources in order to reduce fear of crime among U.S. school students, the research literature on fear of crime at school is in its infancy. This study investigates whether school security techniques reduce or exacerbate fear of crime among students, net of community and school disorder…

The concept of data-driven professional development is both straight-forward and sensible. Implementing this approach is another story, which is why many administrators are turning to sophisticated tools to help manage data collection and analysis. These tools allow educators to assess and correlate student outcomes, instructional methods, and…

Since at least the 1980s, motivated, in part, by findings from international comparisons of students' mathematics achievement, some American (U.S.) educators and policy makers have initiated educational reform that focuses on improving teaching practices and curriculum designs by advocating for the adoption of Asian educational models. The…

This study examined the relationship between high-stakes testing pressure and student achievement across 25 states. Standardized portfolios were created for each study state. Each portfolio contained a range of documents that told the "story" of accountability implementation and impact in that state. Using the "law of comparative…