The purpose of this study is to identify school factors that affect students' achievements at the secondary and tertiary levels of education. The analysis included data of 9,894 students who studied in Auckland regional secondary schools in 2004. The results indicate that, although student demographic characteristics are associated with students'…

In January 2009, in the last week of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Department of Education (ED), upon orders from the departing political appointee staff, published the final report in a long running National Evaluation of Upward Bound (UB). The study was conducted by the contractor, Mathematica Policy Research. After more than a year in…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

How can we better educate disadvantaged urban students? Drawing on over five years' experience in a broad partnership involving twelve urban professional development schools in five districts, a teachers' union, a comprehensive public university, and several community-based organizations, the contributors to this volume describe how they worked…

Reading disorders are a growing concern facing schools. Observational studies have shown that without intervention, the reading issues will be maintained over time. More specifically, phonological processing deficits, the most basic of reading skills, will remain without mediation. Early intervention in the form of individual and group tutoring…

Large numbers of children in the United States are not functioning at adequate levels of literacy. Students who have weak reading proficiency skills are identified as "at-risk"; failure to acquire competency early in their schooling adversely affects performance in all academic fields and limits their potential for achievement in life.…

Education and business leaders as well as the public at large have grown increasingly concerned about the achievement disparities that children from at-risk backgrounds manifest at a young age. Early childhood initiatives that take into account the entire preschool period of 0 to 5 years need a better understanding of the disparities which may be…

Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator of whether or not the nation's public school system is doing what it is intended to do: enroll, engage, and educate youth to be productive members of society. Since almost 90 percent of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require some postsecondary education, having a high school diploma and the…

Just as mathematical ability begins to form in early childhood, so, too, does the knowledge gap separating low-income children from their more affluent peers, who generally enter school with much greater math knowledge. This gap is troubling given that early deficits in mathematical knowledge can have profound implications for future learning. One…

Virtual schooling has been touted as one of the best ways to meet the needs of at-risk students, but what happens when a district's virtual education program is unsuccessful? That was the problem in Eastern Local School District, a small rural district in Beaver, Ohio. The district contracted virtual school services and used the virtual school for…

There is relatively little research on the role of teacher expectations in the early school years or the importance of teacher expectations as a predictor of future academic achievement. The current study investigated these issues in the reading and mathematic domains for young children. Data from nearly 1,000 children and families at 1st, 3rd,…

This paper is drawn from a longitudinal case study in which the authors have tracked the progress of 20 Social Science students over the course of their undergraduate degrees at a historically "white" South African university. The students are all from disadvantaged educational backgrounds and/or speakers of English as a second language.…

The purpose of the paper was to examine the effect of participation in a music mentorship program on the self-esteem and attitudes of at-risk students. Participants (N = 24) were adolescent girls enrolled in a special program for secondary students who are at risk for academic failure and who are experiencing conflict in school and at home.…

By now people are all too familiar with the disheartening numbers: approximately 7,000 students drop out each day, which means nearly one-third of high school students will not graduate with their peers. The statistics are even more staggering for minority and low-income students, especially in the nation's largest urban districts, where less than…

Traditionally, Latino and African-American students have been underrepresented in Advanced Placement courses. However, professional school counselors work to remove barriers to "all" students' success. This article (a) identifies challenges that Latino and African-American students encounter in accessing Advanced Placement courses, (b) reviews the…