It has long been thought that the United States education system is the great equalizer, lifting less advantaged children out of poverty and improving their chances for success in adulthood. The opportunity for economic and social mobility depends heavily, however, on access to high quality education. Recent research has raised concerns about…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or the Recovery Act) of 2009 provided an unprecedented level of funding for K-12 education. The program created a "historic opportunity to save hundreds of thousands of jobs, support states and school districts, and advance reforms and improvements that will create long-lasting results for our…

School impairment is often defined in terms of impairment in academic progress (i.e., poor grades). Poor academic performance can occur for several reasons, including poor homework completion, being off task during class lectures, and inefficient study habits. However, school impairment can include other factors such as a student's inability to…

Of all the challenges we face in education today, the author can think of none greater than the challenge of motivating, educating, and empowering black male learners. The fact that this group of students is in crisis is evident on multiple levels, starting with graduation rates. According to the Schott Foundation (2008), the U.S. high school…

There is little research on bidialectal teacher preparation for teaching bidialectal English-speaking Caribbean American students. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand teachers' perception of reading difficulties of Caribbean American children in a local district that has a large percentage of these students who demonstrate…

The ability to comprehend sophisticated text is a requisite skill for success at the collegiate level. Unfortunately, there is a large disparity between the complexity of texts used in high schools and those used at the collegiate level. Students may be underprepared if they have never been exposed to texts with the level of rigor that college…

The purpose of this study was to compare the cognitive processing profiles of school-age children (ages 7 to 17) who met criteria for underachievement in oral reading accuracy based on three different methods: 1) use of a regression-based IQ-achievement discrepancy only (REGonly), 2) use of a low-achievement cutoff only (LAonly), and 3) use of a…

The September 2011 report, "Teaching the Movement: The State of Civil Rights Education in the United States 2011," was prompted by the news that American high school seniors knew little about the civil rights movement. Knowing that low expectations often contribute to poor student achievement, the report took a close look at the content…

California is poised to become the first state to unmask the extent to which English-language learners (ELLs) languish in public schools for years without ever reaching fluency. Under a measure that received broad, bipartisan support from the legislature, the state education department would be required to break out and report data annually on…

A number of scholars are exploring the district context in which schools are embedded. These studies suggest the importance of the district office as a support or constraint to the work of schools and offer strategies for building relations between district and site leaders. While this is an important task, what is frequently overlooked is that…

This introduction briefly summarizes the featured article and commentaries making up this commissioned set of papers on the topic of the Black-White achievement gap and, more specifically, risk and protective factors for young African American boys' school success. Each paper highlights important considerations for advancing scholarship, practice,…

Beginning from 1 high-poverty, historically low-achieving secondary school's successful turnaround work, this article provides data relative to a successful school turnaround, the importance of external and system-level supports, and the importance of building for sustainable institutionalization of improvements. The evidence suggests the…

Because math fact automaticity has been identified as a key barrier for students struggling with mathematics, we examined how initial math achievement levels influenced the path to automaticity (e.g., variation in number of attempts, speed of retrieval, and skill maintenance over time) and the relation between attainment of automaticity and gains…

This focus group study explored the potential benefits and challenges of involving family members and significant others in a healthy lifestyle program for people with serious mental illness (SMI). Six focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 30 people with SMI, who were participants in a healthy lifestyle intervention. Separate focus…

The "Pygmalion effect" usually refers to the fact that people, often children, students or employees, turn to live up to what's expected of them and they tend to do better when treated as if they are capable of success (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). However, the positive teaching expectations do not necessarily lead to high student…