In school year 2003-2004, state data showed that the percentage of students with limited English proficiency scoring proficient on a state's language arts and mathematics tests was lower than the state's annual progress goals in nearly two-thirds of the 48 states for which data was obtained. To help these students progress academically, state and…

The purpose of this study was to examine rural and non-rural students in order to understand similarities and differences between their learning styles and the ease with which they learned Algebra with a graphic calculator. Two samples of students, one from a rural high school and one from a non-rural one, answered a survey asking about their…

Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards Dual Purpose Assessment (AIMS DPA) is a combination of two separate tests. One test is AIMS, which measures how well the student knows the reading, writing, and mathematics content that all Arizona students in the student's grade level are expected to know and be able to do. AIMS DPA includes…

Rural development is often presumed to rest on educational improvement, and high levels of mathematics achievement might seem essential to improving the quality of rural life and the viability of rural communities. Efforts to promote math achievement growth are usually limited to curricular and instructional innovations, while contextual factors…

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…