I utilize longitudinal data covering all public school students in Florida to study the performance of charter schools and their competitive impact on traditional public schools. Controlling for student-level fixed effects, I find achievement initially is lower in charters. However, by their fifth year of operation new charter schools reach a par…

Why are some students not willing to tell adults about a possibly violent situation in their school? In this study, 1,100 students in the Mid-South were surveyed on their knowledge of, and willingness to tell about, a possibly violent situation, their involvement in behaviors that are related to school violence, and their school's climate. About…

The purpose of this report is to compare changes in social skills, problem behaviors, and academic competence for kindergarten or first grade students identified as being at risk for serious behavior problems who received primary, secondary, or tertiary level preventive interventions. Of the 93 participants in this study, 73% were male; 86% were…

The U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) believes that randomized field trials hold the same promise for improving education as they have had for medical practices. When research studies in education are designed using an experimental model, they are more likely to result in outcomes that can be attributed to the intervention and not to other…

The national Accelerated Schools Project has proven accelerated learning is not just for the gifted. Data show teachers have gotten sustained results in student achievement through the project, which helps them change their expectations, focus on data, and commit to a process of professional learning.

The paper outlines a framework for the development of reading that shows it is heavily dependent upon spoken language processes. Within this view, reading difficulties can follow from difficulties with speech processing (decoding problems) or from broader language processing impairments (comprehension problems). The paper describes the literacy…

This paper reports on a project aimed at providing skills and resources to support nursery staff in identifying areas of strength and need in 3- to 5-year-old children. The six participating nurseries were all in areas of high socio-economic disadvantage. Staff were trained to administer, score and interpret a wide-ranging screening inventory.…

In order to achieve middle school literacy success over time in an urban school district with a high poverty rate and a growing population of English language learners (ELLs), the Chicago Public School (CPS) System has adopted a pedagogical strategy that relies on instruction that is data-driven (formative and summative), standards-based…

A major advance in the field of reading over the past 15 years has been the development and validation of screening measures that can detect with reasonable accuracy those kindergartners and first graders likely to experience difficulty in learning to read. Increasingly, these students now receive additional instructional support during the…

The "National Dropout Prevention Newsletter" is published quarterly by the National Dropout Prevention Center/Network. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Preparing for the Demands of the New World Economy (Patrick J. O'Connor); (2) Connecting At-Risk Youth to the High-Performance Workforce (Patrick J. O'Connor); (3) Butler…

Drawing on their extensive research, Nichols and Berliner document and categorize the ways that high-stakes testing threatens the purposes and ideals of the American education system. For more than a decade, the debate over high-stakes testing has dominated the field of education. This passionate and provocative book provides a fresh perspective…

As part of the effort to reduce cigarette smoking--the single most preventable cause of death in the society--researchers have tried for over half a century to identify effective school-based anti-tobacco education that can discourage tobacco use among children and adolescents. Unfortunately, deaf and hard of hearing young people have been largely…

Research findings confirm positive links between music education, scholastic achievement, and social adaptability, especially among at-risk and special needs children. However, few studies explain how this process occurs. This article presents a didactic approach, which suggests practical ways of enhancing general learning skills while teaching…

We investigated the relationship between family structure and substance use in a sample of 2,138 public middle school students in a southern state. The CDC Middle School Youth Risk Behavior Survey was utilized and adjusted logistic regression models were created separately for four race/gender categories (African American females/males, and…

Over the past five years the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has used the results of the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) to rate public school performance on the School Accountability Report (SAR). The public often considers the school ratings as indicative of the school's quality. There appears to be a lack of quantitative…