The purpose of this study was to examine elementary students' attitudes toward music in Grades 3, 4, and 5. The sample comprised of 366 Grade 3, 4, and 5 students from two different Southeastern elementary schools. The schools had different socioeconomic identities. Of the two schools selected, one school was a Title I school and one a Non-Title I…

Educators are being encouraged to implement new instructional designs in an era where new standards, which promote student-centered learning, are being utilized and all students are expected to be successful on standardized tests. Consequently, there is a need for further research on the effectiveness of student-centered instruction. For that…

Closing the racial achievement gap has been a cornerstone of recent education reform, especially as accountability measures are increasingly relied upon to drive academic performance standards. This article questions the term "achievement gap" and its implication that White students perform better on standardized tests due to greater effort and…

This study investigated convergent validity evidence for student growth scores with high school course grades. The Measures of Academic Progress and Educational Planning and Assessment System growth scores for approximately 1,800 ninth-grade students over 2 years were related to language, arts, and mathematics course grades for developmental,…

The goal of every school district is to help students succeed academically and personally. But does every district leverage its most valuable resource, its teachers, to meet that goal? At the Valley Stream Central High School District in Nassau County, New York, these authors know how important teacher commitment is to student success, so they…

Stories are a great way to acquaint young learners with geographic locations. A plethora of choices are available in the folktale genre, so librarians and teachers will have little difficulty locating a variety. Folktales provide an accessible and child friendly approach for engaging students. In addition, when connections are made between…

This study relates the performance of college students in introductory science courses to the amount of content covered in their high school science courses. The sample includes 8310 students in introductory biology, chemistry, or physics courses in 55 randomly chosen U.S. colleges and universities. Students who reported covering at least 1 major…

Representatives from the Michigan Department of Education and the Center for Educational Performance and Information requested assistance in estimating Michigan's capacity to adequately staff its high schools to meet the course requirements of the new Michigan Merit Curriculum. The study team devised a formula to estimate the number of additional…

Based on the recommendation of the AAAS and the NRC, middle level science is the rightful introduction for a systems approach, including the study of its parts, subsystems, interconnections, and interrelationships. Dr. Seuss's "The Lorax" provides an excellent opportunity to combine ecological consequences within a systems approach (Sweeney 2001).…

This longitudinal study was designed to (a) examine changes in children's deliberate memory across the 1st grade; (b) characterize the memory-relevant aspects of their classrooms; and (c) explore linkages between the children's performance and the language their teachers use in instruction. To explore contextual factors that may facilitate the…

The author calls for incorporating into English classes what he calls museum-based pedagogy, arguing that it enables the teaching of multiple literacies: verbal, visual, technological, social, and critical. In part, this pedagogy consists of classroom instruction that enables students to understand the persuasive nature of museum displays--the…

Policy-makers, administrators, researchers, and teachers are increasingly vested in ensuring the quality of preschool instruction, particularly in the areas of language and literacy. This research was conducted to characterize the quality of language and literacy instruction in 135 publicly funded preschool classrooms serving at-risk pupils. As…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of the District of Columbia's Year 2 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2011 through September 2012. Despite the delays, the Office of the State…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Delaware's Year 2 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2011 through September 2012. Despite some implementation challenges and delays during the…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Florida's Year 2 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation from approximately September 2011 through September 2012. In Year 2, the State made progress in executing contracts and…