It is an adage that holds true in almost any context--practice makes perfect. In golf, like in many other sports, experience is a central factor in success as well. Children who take up golf early have a distinct advantage when they hit high school and begin competing for the attention of college coaches, and the national junior tournaments are…

In this article, we offer a research-based theoretical framework for sustainability, describing the proven qualities of a project and the innovations that support its sustained existence over time. We then describe how a US Department of Education Technology Innovation Challenge grantee, working to promote technology integration in a…

The issue of whether the federal government should outline and enforce an accountability system for states, school districts, and schools was essentially settled the day that George W. Bush took office as president. Bush had made "accountability" a cornerstone of his education platform, using his stated goal of ensuring equity for poor…

The experience of rural poverty is in many ways unique from that of urban poverty. In the rural setting, social cohesion creates pressure on the poor to behave in ways that are consistent with local values. This paper, based on qualitative research done in an isolated, rural Northern California community, argues that in this setting the survival…

Texas has had its Robin Hood school financing system in place since 1993, when the legislature adopted the system in response to a state supreme court order to equalize state spending on public schools. Under the arrangement, any district that has taxable property values exceeding $305,000 per student is not allowed to keep all of its property-tax…

Although economically disadvantaged and minority students made some gains in their academic achievement performance, education reforms still fail to close the academic achievement gap between them. A discussion of the factors that influence the achievement gap is presented and provides some professional development implications. According to the…

Working from a core perspective on the developmental implications of economic disadvantage, this study attempted to identify "family-based" mechanisms of economic effects on early learning and their potential "school-based" remedies. Multilevel analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort revealed that…

This paper describes a community service learning (CSL) project that helped sixteen Latino/a teacher trainees in the areas of caring, social justice, bias reduction, teaching experience, personal growth, joy, and collaboration. The project was significant because the participants and the children they tutored were all Latinos who had shared…

This study examined the relationship between high school student achievement, per pupil expenditure, school district enrollment, selected student demographics (economically disadvantaged, racial and ethnic groupings {African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, Native American/Alaskan, and White}, limited English proficiency, and students…

Impoverished populations and schools in rural areas face special challenges that are different from other settings. Among these are the distances from social services, the sparse availability of assistance programs, and the shortage of resources to support educational programs and student learning. Rural schools, do, however, have assets that can…

This case study describes a 20-year journey of educational transformation from 1985 to 2005 in a bellwether, or highly developed, instance of one school, family, and community partnership--the Kileely Community Project--situated in a large social housing project in Limerick City in the Midwestern region of the Republic of Ireland. The study is a…

This paper investigates the effects of California's billion-dollar class-size-reduction program on student achievement. It uses year-to-year differences in class size generated by variation in enrollment and the state's class-size-reduction program to identify both the direct effects of smaller classes and related changes in teacher quality.…

Teacher quality is the school factor which makes the greatest impact on student achievement and consistent exposure to effective teachers can overcome obstacles to learning and even close achievement gaps. These facts were the driving force behind the development of federal law, in the No Child Left Behind Act, mandating that states ensure that 1)…

This report summarizes analyses of post-secondary enrollment trends of Austin Independent School District high school graduates for the Classes of 2002 to 2007. [For the 2002-2006 report, see ED620819.]

This article examines the determinants of children's schooling during the 1990s in rural areas of Vietnam. It focuses on the impact of family attributes on the likelihood of children remaining in school or leaving during the primary and secondary school years. Using data from the Vietnam Living Standard Survey (VLSS) of 1992-93 and 1997-98, the…