Ten annotations of literature in the ERIC system that discuss the pros and cons of grade retention for low-achieving students are presented in this booklet. (Author/MLF)

Many teachers resist staff development programs because they believe that "staff development" is a euphemism for "staff evaluation" and are suspicious of an administration collecting quantitative material on teaching for any reason. Similarly, there exists a competitiveness among teachers that precludes complete trust. In recent years, an increase…

The grading system at the University of North Carolina at Asheville before fall 1978 provided four designations: H (honors); G (good or well above average); P (pass or satisfactory); and F (failure). This range does not provide a grade for unsatisfactory but passing work. It was suspected that this led teachers to give "average" grades…

The number and characteristics of ninth grade students who ran a high risk of not successfully completing their ninth grade program were investigated. With the assistance of the school guidance counselors data were collected with two forms, one which contained information from teachers about students identified as "high risk" in the…

A study was conducted to develop and implement a one- and five-year student and employer-based follow-up study of secondary vocational education programs in Tennessee. Questionnaires were sent to 1,013 students who graduated in 1975-76 and to 92 of their employers. It was found that (1) students in both groups rated the Tennessee vocational…

The work reported here is part of an ongoing project to develop a language comprehension assessment instrument that: (1) is sensitive enough to pinpoint the particular language phenomena that are causing difficulty or have not been mastered, and (2) is also broad enough in scope to provide a credible and useful description of language proficiency.…

This report attempts to determine how successful community groups have been at influencing school decision-making and policy formation. It begins by surveying several research and evaluation studies regarding citizen participation in educational decisions and placing special emphasis on a field study of 16 community organizations. The analysis…

The charge that minimum competency testing provides diagnosis without treatment is refuted. The movement has made no attempt to dictate course content or teaching methods; it leaves treatment decisions to individual teachers. Treatment can be defined only in relation to a problem. The problem, as minimum competency advocates implicitly define it,…

The final report and a general summary of a research project that assessed the developmental differences in children's use of constructive reading strategies are presented in this paper. The five chapters of the final report offer descriptions of separate studies conducted in the following areas: children's metacognitive knowledge about reading;…

The eight chapters in this book are designed to present a rationale for a developmental reading program in the middle school and to provide middle school teachers with concrete suggestions for teaching reading. The first two chapters present an overview of middle school philosophy and the rationale for providing reading instruction at that level.…

This report summarizes the techniques used in gathering and maintaining a data file on most of the Army aviator trainees who have been through the Officer/Warrant Officer Rotary Wing Aviator Course and the Warrant Officer Candidate Course during the period 1 July 1968-31 December 1969. Specific regression analyses dealing with the prediction of…

All of the students, both black and white, in three ninth-grade English classes in rural southwest Virginia were taped reading a specified passage. They then wrote at least one page in response to questions and completed the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test. The tapes and writing samples were analyzed for the presence of specified phonological and…

The junior-high or high-school student who reads below the fourth-grade level was cited as a national problem. Those students must be identified by reading specialists and English teachers, and programs must be prepared to correct these reading disabilities through motivation and skill building. Because of this need, the author described the…

The publishing requirements, honorary degrees, and the assessment of literary merit are mocked in this brief piece of fiction concerning the professional advancement of college English teachers. (AF)

The document tested the level of generalization of a recent conclusion from past research (see ED075156) on nonmetropolitan (NM) south and southwest Texas Mexican American teenagers: that these youths have predominantly high and strong status aspirations and expectations. Earlier findings on NM Mexican American youth supported Merton's thesis that…