This study investigated African American adolescents' achievement values. One hundred and forty-six male and 161 female African American sixth graders at a middle school in the Los Angeles (California) area nominated classmates according to 3 criteria: those whom they most admired, respected, and wanted to be like. These nominations were combined…

As part of a study of school effectiveness, a procedure was developed to select schools for study based on extreme high or extreme low degrees of successfulness in reading. Data for all 775 public elementary schools in Maryland that were active in 1995 were used. Five triads of schools were selected, each triad consisting of two schools that were…

In December 1996 the New York State Legislature enacted sweeping changes in the structure and governance of the New York City public school system. The legislature and the Governor have shifted over one million school children, their parents, and their teachers back to a centralized, hierarchical system, in which one person, the chancellor,…

This information booklet for parents answers some of the questions parents often ask about their children's participation in basic skills improvement programs. It suggests ways in which parents can support and reinforce the school's role and offers suggestions for parent involvement and ideas for at-home activities to support skill development.…

Explores the following five dimensions of self-perception held by black urban male 10th-grade students in North Carolina: (1) scholastic competence; (2) athletic competence; (3) physical appearance; (4) behavioral conduct; and (5) job competence. Investigates differences in these aspects of self-concept for 30 students scoring above and 30 scoring…

The issue of low teacher expectations of students is addressed, bearing in mind that any effort to address low teacher expectations for students that does not address the broader issue of school change will fail. The first section of the monograph explores the relationship between teacher expectations and student achievement. The second section…

Texas college students must pass all three sections (reading, writing, and mathematics) of the state-mandated Texas Academic Skills Program (TASP) Test or must enroll in remedial course work. Over 98,000 TASP scores from 73 community, junior, and technical colleges for the academic year 1996-1997 were analyzed to ascertain if less-prepared…

One of the consequences of the North Carolina ABC plan of educational reform has been the unmasking of student performance data. The new ABC model reports student performance data by school building, making it impossible to ignore the gap between students in high-performing schools and those in low-performing schools. Included in the legislation…

A study is reported that investigated whether the foreign language learning outcomes of the poorest performers in Finnish schools could be improved by intensive remedial teaching. An experimental approach was taken with a group of 12 sixth grade students in a suburban school in Helsinki. Four were poor, four were average, and four were good…

This study investigated whether mean scores in school effectiveness ratings were masking poor delivery of educational services to low achievers in a sample of 242 Louisiana public elementary schools accounting for over 18,000 third graders tested in 1989. Ten separate multiple regression models, each producing studentized residuals used as school…

Educators, environmentalists, and psychologists generally agree on the need to incorporate opportunities for movement by students into the classroom, but an extensive review of the literature did not reveal any studies concerned primarily with the relationships among students' mobility, their learning style preferences, and their academic…

The influences of student-level and campus factors on the academic performance of intercollegiate athletes were studied. Approximately 80 full-time student athletes were selected from each of 42 institutions in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Data were drawn from the 1987-88 National Study of Intercollegiate…

The results of a 2-year study examining the ways that four major urban school systems (New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston) sort students into different schools, tracks, ability groups, and grade levels are summarized in this report. The study looked carefully at the effects of these sorting practices on low-income, minority, limited…

A study was conducted to investigate the curricular experiences of the low achievers, including the quality of the programs they participated in and the congruence between their classroom and pullout programs. Three lower-middle-class first graders in the Pacific Northwest participated in the study: John spent the entire day in the classroom;…

Information about how Graduate Record Examination (GRE) examinees solve verbal analogy problems was obtained in this study through protocol analysis. High- and low-ability subjects who had recently taken the GRE General Test were asked to "think aloud" as they worked through eight analogy items. These items varied factorially on the…