The purpose of this study was to examine leadership practices that lead to improving academic achievement for African American males. Specifically, this study examined cultural insensitivity and its impact on educating African American male students in reading. The study utilized several techniques to determine what practices educators used to…

The Adult Literacy Research Working Group (ALRWG), a panel of experts on adult reading research and practice, was established by the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) in collaboration with the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy (NCSALL). It was part of the Institute's efforts to provide educators, parents and others…

The education system has currently failed Latino students. A large achievement gap exists between English Language Learners (ELLs) and other student populations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of the Response To Intervention (RTI) model in improving the reading achievement of Latino students at a Title Once school…

More than one third of American children cannot read at a basic level by fourth grade (Lee, Grigg, & Donahue, 2007) and those numbers are even higher for African American, Hispanic and poor White students (Boorman et al., 2007). These are alarming statistics given that the ability to read is the most basic and fundamental skill for academic…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Getting Back to Average: American Fifteen-Year-Olds Rank 14th in Reading, 17th in Science, and 25th in Mathematics,…

Academic learning time (ALT) has long had the theoretical underpinnings sufficient to claim a causal relationship with academic achievement, but to this point empirical evidence has been lacking. This dearth of evidence has existed primarily due to difficulties associated with operationalizing ALT in traditional educational settings. Recent…

Due to the challenges of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, many schools and school districts are implementing after-school tutoring programs to provide students additional instruction to score proficient or better in reading and mathematics. This doctoral study analyzed the effects of the ABC Middle School Educational Assistance Program…

The goal of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is for all students to become proficient in reading and mathematics by 2014. According to current research, no states are on track to achieve this goal set forth by NCLB (Rebel & Wolff, 2008). As a result of schools failing to meet their academic targets on standardized tests, the United…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires states to test students in reading and math and identify them as below proficient, proficient, or advanced. Schools are held accountable only for ensuring that students test proficient or better (both considered passing), leading to concerns that a focus on increasing the percentage of students testing…

Increasing the share of vocational secondary schooling has been a mainstay of development policy for decades, perhaps nowhere more so than in formerly socialist countries. The transition, however, led to significant restructuring of school systems, including a declining share of vocational students. Exposing more students to a general curriculum…

This study examined whether the "Experience Corps" program improved the reading skills of elementary school students who were at risk of academic failure. Nearly 900 first through third grade students in 23 schools in Boston, New York City, and Port Arthur, TX participated in the study. These students were randomly assigned to either a…

The primary purpose of the report is to explore the impact of PISA reading scores on the early labour market outcomes of young Canadians of the Youth in Transition Survey. This inquiry is complicated by two facts. First, family and school characteristics that are positively correlated with PISA scores are also correlated with labour market…

The purpose of the study was to understand reading tutors' perceptions of the effectiveness of tutorial programs on reading achievement of at-risk students in a South Texas school district. Fifty-eight reading tutors tutoring at-risk students in grades 3-8 were asked to complete a survey entitled "Reading Tutor Survey" and…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference between self-contained and departmentalized classroom organization on the Kentucky Core Content Test (KCCT) in reading and mathematics for students in fourth and fifth grade. A secondary purpose of this study was to consider how these organizational structures affect the…

This descriptive study examined the readability levels of Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs). The readability of 85 de-identified IFSP documents developed by seven agencies that serve families and children enrolled in a county early intervention program was analyzed using Flesch Kincaid grade levels and Flesch reading ease scores. The…