Both the U.S. Department of Education and the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) believe that equal opportunity is a core American value. Equal access to excellent education provides meaningful opportunities for students to achieve their goals. Recognizing that family income and race often predicts a student's ability to access excellent…

This study examined whether or not fourth-graders could fully demonstrate their writing skills on the computer and factors associated with their performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) computer-based writing assessment. The results suggest that high-performing fourth-graders (those who scored in the upper 20 percent…

City Year is a learning organization committed to the rigorous evaluation of its "Whole School Whole Child" model, which trains and deploys teams of AmeriCorps members to low-performing, urban schools to empower more students to reach their full potential. A third-party study by Policy Studies Associates (PSA) examined the impact of…

Many children who would not be identified as having special educational needs are low-attaining in mathematics, which often has a severe impact on their progress at school and their successes in later life. This paper describes Catch Up Numeracy, a non-intensive targeted intervention for children who are low-attaining in mathematics, which is…

The phrase "broadening participation" is often used to describe efforts to decrease the race and gender gap in science and engineering education, and in this paper the authors describe an educational program focused on addressing the lower achievement rates and career interests of underrepresented ethnic groups (African American, Native…

Agricultural education begins with hands-on classroom and laboratory instruction. Because agriculture is such a broad topic, schools typically tailor agriculture class offerings to match the interests of the student population, needs of nearby businesses and industry, or topics relevant to their state's standard assessments. Within most…

From 2005-2009, the state determined that the Williams School had made no progress in raising its poor performance on the state English language arts test. In the fall of 2009, the state awarded literacy partnership grants to provide professional development to low-performing schools, and the Williams School partnered with our institution of…

In this case study, we report on the development of a writing-specialist position, the "Writing Resource Coordinator (WRC)", in a school of social work at a large state university in the southern USA. Such programs are facing increasing budgetary pressures at the same time as their growing enrollments strain available resources. Students…

The reading response journal has been valued as an effective tool for involving students in authentic reading and writing activities. As the internet has become an essential medium in today's English classroom, it is advisable to integrate both the web and the journal when approaching our EFL students. In order to motivate and engage my…

Children who grow up in poverty are less likely to graduate high school, enter college and find economic stability. REAL School Gardens believes the right educational opportunities -- ones that engage and motive children to learn -- can break this cycle. The REAL School Gardens Program builds learning gardens and offers teacher training to improve…

A number of research studies have suggested that specific pedagogic strategies can have a positive impact on learning, and in turn, have a positive impact on school performance, in particular for children being schooled in disadvantaged contexts. This analysis describes and measures how four of these pedagogic strategies identified in research --…

This study was designed to investigate friend influence on academic achievement and task avoidance during middle childhood in a sample of 794 participants in 397 stable same-sex friendship dyads (205 girl dyads and 192 boy dyads) from four municipalities in Finland: two in Central Finland, one in Western Finland, and one in Eastern Finland.…

This report from the Alliance finds that schools that struggle most with providing a positive school climate more often disproportionately serve students of color and low-income students. It also confirms that students of color and students from low-income families are less likely to have access to rigorous course work and experienced teachers,…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine and determine what factors contribute to the prevention of first semester freshmen students not succeeding on high stakes tests based on their opinions, and what variables are important to their performance at the university. The Personal Educational Academic Survey (PEAS), a 65 item Likert-type…

A founding ideal of American democracy is that merit, not accident of birth, should determine individuals' income and social status. Schools have assumed a major role in judging key elements of merit among young people--namely, academic skills, hard work, self-discipline, and cooperative behavior. Schools do so mainly by evaluating students in a…