This paper is a report of a study that investigated whether increased private-school competition results in enhanced performance of public schools. Data for the study came from a pooled data set from Georgia Department of Education documents and directories, which included socioeconomic data on students and test scores from Georgia school systems…

Growing regulation of teacher preparation programs has raised concerns about standardization in the field of teacher education. With greater uniformity, is there a loss of innovation and program identity? To gather information on this question, we examined teacher preparation programs in Elementary Education, Secondary English, Secondary…

The statistical technique, "Zero-One Linear Programming," that has successfully been used to create multiple tests with similar characteristics (e.g., item difficulties, test information and test specifications) in the area of educational measurement, was deemed to be a suitable method for creating multiple sets of matched samples to be…

This summative evaluation of magnet programs employed a quasi-experimental design to investigate whether or not students enrolled in magnet programs gained any achievement advantage over students who were not enrolled in a magnet program. Researchers used Zero-One Linear Programming to draw multiple sets of matched samples from the non-magnet…

This study investigated the relationship between the scales used for the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Tests (PACT) assessments and the RIT scales used to report performance on Northwest Evaluation Association tests. The RIT scale was developed using Rasch scaling methodologies. RIT-based tests are used to inform a variety of educational…

A review of research yields nine conclusions concerning mathematics achievement among rural and urban students. Among them are that currently a national rural vs. non-rural mathematics achievement gap does not exist; at the state level, a rural vs. non-rural achievement gap exists in 40 percent of the states, and that gap is evenly split between…

This study investigates computer-mediated communication (CMC) to facilitate the construction of a learning community of preservice teachers. The formation of a learning community involves students working together to solve ill-structured problems and applying knowledge and experience to heuristic teaching. "Peer learning" broadly…

Articles in this volume, written in Spanish, focus on the following: intellectual style and academic performance; an explanatory integrated model of academic goals, learning strategies, and academic performance; a comparative situational study of drug addiction; early childhood depression and academic performance: a comparative study of patients…

This paper presents "conjectures" about how rural students from isolated or economically declining communities may come to understand and negotiate their academic classroom experiences. In contrast to the metropolitan culture of America, such students continue to define successful living in ways that do not assume obtaining college…

This activity-oriented book for preservice mathematics teachers who are taking methods courses or who have been student teaching offers a framework for teacher reflection and self- assessment. It supplies detailed observation instruments for observing other teachers, reflective activities, and guidelines and instruments for supervisors. There are…

Teachers and students can view the world of animals together through an exploration of how-and-why questions about animals in this curriculum unit. The problem-solving and critical thinking skills of students are improved through interactive activities involving oral and written communication, mathematics, creative arts, music, dance, and creative…

This review of the literature discusses 15 studies that have been conducted on the effect of computer-based instruction on the academic achievement of at-risk students in elementary schools in the United States. The at-risk population consists of those students who are in the free- and reduced-school lunch programs, those students who are…

This case study examines the history and current circumstances of education in the Gila River Indian Community (Arizona) in the context of its participation in the Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Rural Systemic Initiative (UCAN RSI), which aims to improve science and mathematics achievement through systemic reform. This report describes…

As noted in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD's) "PISA 2000 Technical Report" (OECD, 2002), the Austrian sample for the PISA 2000 assessment did not adequately cover students enrolled in combined school and work-based vocational programmes as required by the OECD's technical standards for PISA. The…

The Council of the Great City Schools prepared this report to review the Dayton (Ohio) Public Schools District's performance as a way to help address its declining enrollment and stagnant student achievement. The goal of the project was to determine why the academic performance of Dayton's students was not improving and what the district could do…