This article describes the journey one elementary school took to implement a standards-based mathematics program and increase student achievement by putting research into action. After learning that Evansville Elementary School (Evansville, Wyoming) had failed to meet the annual yearly progress (AYP) in mathematics, as mandated by the No Child…

In this article, the author provides a review and critique of key provisions in the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and documents some major effects of the law, which have not been positive for arts education and other subjects not formally tested under the law. Because NCLB is scheduled for reauthorization in 2007 or 2008, the author offers a…

This study examines second-term and second-year persistence of 19,489 freshmen at American River College (ARC), a large, urban, public community college near Sacramento, California. Academic and non-academic characteristics are compared between first year dropouts and those students that enroll one year after the first fall term at ARC for two…

Education's loyalty to contemporary school organization has provoked wholesale student underachievement and a tragic subculture of youngsters at risk. This book proposes a model for school reform called Success Oriented Schools (SOS). Chapter 1 introduces the premise that schools will begin to educate all students when they strengthen wholesome…

This paper presents a proposal for a modified school choice program that may serve as a public policy compromise to the current politicized and entrenched choice or no-choice positions. The Three Year-Three Step Performance Guarantee involves both choice and vouchers. The use of vouchers, however, is not directed at reforming schools, but at…

This paper describes the Accelerated Schools Project, which was begun at Stanford University in 1986 to improve schools for children caught in at-risk situations. The first sections describe the present deficiencies of schools serving at-risk students and the limitations of general reform proposals for educating at-risk youth. The Accelerated…

A study examined the effectiveness of a program designed to help the hardest-to-teach, lowest-achieving readers to function at the level of the same-aged peers. Subjects, 35 children referred from Reading Recovery who did not meet discontinuation criteria, worked with specially trained teachers for 30 minutes daily, 5 days a week. The main…

This study assessed the effectiveness of tutoring intervention for sight word acquisition and determined whether any progress was matched by improved reading fluency, reading rate, and sight word identification. Nine middle school students from Hillside, New Jersey were selected based upon teacher referral for poor reading skills. "Edward…

This study reviews research and looks at promotion policies in 85 school districts, including the United States' 40 largest districts, describes the practices that support social promotion, and identifies the policy changes that will be necessary to break the social promotion-retention-social promotion cycle. Social promotion prevails in these…

A study investigated the effects of art expression on self-concept of low-reading first-grade students. Subjects, five low-readers and five on- or above-grade-level first graders from central Virginia, were pretested for self-concept, instructed in a two-week art-book making intervention, and posttested with the same instrument. Results indicated…

This study examined the actual performance of lower-achieving candidates in Standard Grade English. Information was collected over two years from the examination scripts and folios of course work of over 300 low-achieving students in grades three through six at several large schools throughout Scotland. A number of schools were visited to study…

This document provides the final evaluation report of the language development component of the Columbus, Ohio, Public Schools' Chapter 1 All-Day Kindergarten Program for 1989-1990. The overall goal of the program was to prepare underachieving kindergarten children for first grade. A total of 17 teachers in 17 elementary schools participated in…

The Seattle (Washington) Public Schools receive Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) Chapter 1 funds annually for remedial instruction of low-achieving students in economically disadvantaged areas. To obtain these funds, the district must determine which of its schools are target areas; that is, which schools have students with…

Preparing students for high school is only one of the many functions of middle school. It is expected that by this time children would have acquired the behaviors necessary to interact appropriately with peers and adults. This practicum was designed to help the low achieving and the learning disabled student (SLD) acquire appropriate social…

An action research project studied the attitudes and achievement of low-achieving fifth-grade students after participating in a 1-year heterogeneously grouped, literature-based reading program. The project explored the changes in student attitudes towards reading, and changes in students' knowledge in comprehension and vocabulary development.…