This study was a secondary analysis of data from the Prenatal/Early Infancy Project (PEIP), a randomized clinical trial of nurse home visits for socially disadvantaged families in a semi-rural community in upstate New York. A sample of 141 primiparous women between 13 and 21 years, unmarried and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, was selected…

This book, the 22nd edition of a series initiated in 1975, provides general statistical data to the public, professional educators, and the North Carolina General Assembly. The statistical profile includes information on public school students, personnel, and finances. Tables with statewide data are presented in Part I. The first section of the…

In order to provide data to help schools respond to the diversity in the backgrounds and educational needs of children entering school, a U.S. Department of Education study asked parents of 3- to 5-year-old children who had not yet started kindergarten about their children's accomplishments that indicated emerging literacy and numeracy skills and…

The Ohio State Literacy Survey, which assessed Ohio adults' literacy skills according to their performance on tasks reflecting the materials/demands encountered in daily life, was administered to a sample of 1,568 persons aged 16 years or older who were randomly selected from Ohio's approximately 8.3 million adults. Each participant received…

Thirteen papers explore the African American experience of poverty and ghetto formation; forces shaping contemporary urban poverty; and mobility and family strategies among groups differentiated by ethnicity, race, and labor market position. The introduction, "The Urban 'Underclass' as a Metaphor of Social Transformation" (M. B. Katz),…

Teachers' tolerance and their attitudes toward diversity were studied through a survey of 521 graduate and undergraduate students. The majority of the graduate students were teachers pursuing master's degrees, and most of the undergraduates were in preservice teacher education courses. The surveys were related to political, social, and moral…

The 15 chapters of this book address issues related to the continuing test score gap between black and white students. The editors argue against traditional explanations which emphasize differences in economic resources and demographic factors, and they urge that more emphasis be put on psychological and cultural factors. The book suggests studies…

Data from the Spring 1996 administration of the New Standards Mathematics Reference Examination for Middle Grades were used to examine the instructional validity of the Reference Examination, opportunity to learn, and equity in the context of the California Mathematics Renaissance program. Student (n=1,936) and teacher (n=105) responses to the…

Students' attitudes and preparation practices regarding standardized tests were studied with students from one elementary school and two middle schools in Atlanta (Georgia). There were 111 fifth graders (35 African American and 76 European American) and 274 eighth graders (204 African American and 70 European American). Students completed a survey…

This study examined first- to second-semester persistence of first-time, full-time college freshmen at a public four-year institution, focusing on Tinto's (1993) concept of separation. Data were collected from 689 first-time, full-time freshmen using the Cooperative Institutional Research Program 1995 Student Information Form, and from 411…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a congressionally mandated survey of educational achievement of what American students know and can do, it also includes a yardstick that can be used to evaluate that performance. Results, presented here for the states and the nation, indicate that just over 60 percent of the students in…

This report, prepared from information collected from Colorado's public school districts for 64 counties, provides information about public school students grades K through 12. In fall 1991, there were 593,030 students in Colorado's public schools, representing a substantial increase for the second consecutive year, and surpassing the state's…

A study was done to compare the success of undergraduate engineering schools in graduating minorities from their programs. The study developed the following three parameters that can be used to define the performance of engineering schools in graduating minorities: (1) graduation rates of minorities; (2) graduation rates of minorities relative to…

This paper describes an effort to find ways to respond to the challenges of supporting student and faculty diversity by providing data about the experiences of Latino undergraduates at the University of Michigan. Data were collected from a random sample of 73 Latino undergraduates and a comparison group of 24 non-Latinos. The Latino group…

A benefit of using the multifaceted Rasch model is the ability to factor out or control for confounding factors in the estimation of person ability and item difficulty. This study experiments with a variation of the multifaceted Rasch analysis in calibrating the effects of demographic characteristics that are intended to overcome the problem of…