Forsyth County Schools has recently finished a very successful year. In 2008, all 16 elementary schools and eight middle schools made Adequate Yearly Progress. In spite of the fact that Georgia administered new, more rigorous math assessments for grades 3-5 and grade 8, the district had an average of 22% more students passing the assessments than…

This study investigates whether the functions linking number-correct scores to the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP) scaled scores remain invariant over gender groups, using test data on the 16 testlet-based forms of the CLEP College Algebra exam. To be consistent with the operational practice, linking of various test forms to a common…

This report presents the deliberations of the Central Regional Advisory Committee (RAC), one of 10 RACs established under the Educational Technical Assistance Act of 2002 (20 U.S.C. sections 9601 et. seq.) to assess the educational needs of the region. The committee's report outlines the educational needs across the states of Colorado, Kansas,…

This quantitative study investigated the effectiveness of a teacher-implemented intervention of eight sessions integrated into an existing curriculum to reduce test anxiety and improve academic performance in fourth grade students. The experimental group, n=23 was drawn from a sample of 64 students in a southwestern Rhode Island public school…

The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) holds schools, districts, and states accountable for improving the academic achievement of all students, including the nearly 14% of public school students who receive special education services because they have an identified disability. By 2014, 100% of students with disabilities are expected to…

"High Schools That Work" (HSTW) is a school improvement initiative that was inaugurated by the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) in 1987. The main purpose of this concurrent validity study is to evaluate one or more measures by investigating their relationship to other commonly used and established measures given at or about the…

The purpose of the present study is to examine the language characteristics of a few states' large-scale assessments of mathematics and science and investigate whether the language demands of the items are associated with the degree of differential item functioning (DIF) for English language learner (ELL) students. A total of 542 items from 11…

Each year, between 10 and 20 percent of schoolchildren in the United States are exposed to domestic violence. According to psychologists, such exposure can lead to aggressive behavior, decreased social competence, and diminished academic performance. A majority of parents and school officials believe that children who are troubled, whatever the…

In this article, the author talks about "the Harlem miracle" described by "New York Times" columnist David Brooks and the big effects produced by no-excuses schools. The author first examines "economic inequality" in Berliner's (2009) more specific terms--seven out-of-school factors that affect achievement. These are:…

This study compared the impact of proctoring on the final course grades of community college students enrolled in distance education mathematics courses. The goal was to determine whether distance education students who are evaluated entirely online, in environments that are not proctored, receive grades that differ from distance education…

Although students have been taking the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) Science test for a few years, the State included the performance on the Science test in the school grade calculations for the first time in 2006-07. Although no official guidelines exist presently, the Science scores may also be incorporated in the NCLB Adequately…

On Monday, the teacher assigns her class a list of 20 spelling words to learn. On Friday, she tests the students on how well they learned to spell these words. This "mastery measurement" is the traditional way of determining student progress. The next spelling mastery test will indicate mastery of the next week's 20 new words, a new skill.…

This report summarizes Austin ISD's 2007 student academic assessment results on the state test,TAKS, in reading/English language arts and mathematics to determine how many students performed in the following scale score ranges: less than 2000, between 2000 and 2099, between 2100 and 2199, and greater than or equal to 2200. Students must make a…

This study examined whether attending a "Knowledge is Power Program" (KIPP) middle school improved students' academic achievement. KIPP schools in the study included fifth through eighth grades and served primarily low-income, minority students. The study found that fifth-grade students in KIPP middle schools generally performed better…

This Research Brief presents a method for predicting 10th grade Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) success from 6th grade FCAT performance. A simple equation provides the most probable single score prediction, and give-or-take error margins define high and low probability zones for expected 10th grade scores. In addition, a double-entry…