Urban education is an interdisciplinary field, characterized by introducing many perspectives to research pertaining to educational policy and to the practice of educating youth whose lives unfold in densely populated urban metropolitan areas. This book celebrates Constance Clayton's eleven-year tenure as superintendent of the School District of…

The international OECD PISA [Programme for International Assessment] 2006 test focused on the performance of Sciences of 15 years old students. The unsatisfactory results from Mexico were submitted to analysis, including multilevel models, to explain the origin of their deficiencies. It was clear that a differential functioning behavior or a…

The study investigated the selective attentional effects of adjunct study questions inserted before or after the presentation of science flow diagrams. The basic design for the study was a post-test only control group design involving a total of 252 students randomly selected from six secondary schools in Ile-Ife, Oshun State Nigeria. These were…

Guided by a new framework, the NAEP science assessment was updated in 2009 to keep the content current with key developments in science, curriculum standards, assessments, and research. The 2009 framework organizes science content into three broad content areas. Physical science includes concepts related to properties and changes of matter, forms…

As the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation chronicled in its last year's Fordham Sponsorship Accountability Report, "Seeking Quality in the Face of Adversity", the 2008-09 school year was a brutal one during which schools, and their peers, faced many existential threats. The 2009-10 school year was Fordham's fifth year as a charter school…

Interest in single-sex classes continues to grow in the United States, but there has been little research at the elementary level in this country or elsewhere to help guide educators' decision-making about the overall value of single-sex classes in public schools and the specific value of single-sex classes in public schools for increasing boy's…

We use a construct-based assessment approach to measure learning progression of energy concepts across physical, life, and earth science contexts in middle school grades. We model the knowledge integration construct in six levels in terms of the numbers of ideas and links used in student-generated explanations. For this study, we selected 10 items…

The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) asserts that all students, including those identified as English language learners (ELL), can and should have every opportunity to learn and succeed in science. Teachers play a critical and central role in this process and should receive necessary support. Likewise, it is important for schools and…

Global climate change, rising sea levels, changing weather patterns, collapsing fisheries, and habitat losses are real threats to the American economy and way of life. At the same time, America's youth continue to fall further behind their global peers in science and math, resulting in the threat of a future where fewer Americans are prepared for…

At the elementary grade level, former English language learner (ELL) students' TAKS passing rates in mathematics, reading/ELA, and writing significantly exceeded the TAKS passing rates of non-ELL students. At the secondary level, former ELL students' passing rates on TAKS mathematics, social studies, and science were significantly lower than the…

Previous literature has documented how teachers perceive both advantages and disadvantages associated with standards-based reform. These teacher perceptions may be connected to classroom practices in terms of the extent to which standards are utilized by individual teachers. The purpose of this study was to identify how secondary science teachers…

This study examined the relationships among students' learning approaches, motivational goals, previous science grades, and their science achievement for the concepts related to atomic theory and explored the effects of gender and sociodemographic variables on students' learning approaches, motivational goals, and their science achievement for the…

This study compared the effects of Programmed Instruction and Demonstration methods on students academic performance in science in Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State. A sampling technique (balloting) was used in selecting two schools in Esan West local government area for the study. Two intact classes of fifty (50) students each from the…

This study explored the relationship between reading and achievement on a science standardized test. A nonfiction reading subtest and the science section of the Connecticut Academic Performance Test were compared for Grade 10 students at 3 Connecticut high schools. Results showed a moderate-to-strong positive relationship between the variables.…

As part of our professional development intervention, this study examined third-grade ELL students' writing achievement that included "form" (i.e., conventions, organization, and style/voice) and "content" (i.e., specific knowledge and understanding of science) in expository science writing. The study included six treatment schools from a large…