This study contributes to the field by identifying a broad range of traditional and newer middle grade policies and practices, and determining in California which of these differentiate higher- from lower-performing schools serving similar student populations, with performance measured by the state's standards-based tests. Based on a sample of 303…

In the 2008-09 school year researchers from EdSource and Stanford University conducted a large-scale study of 303 middle grades schools in California. The team surveyed 303 principals, 3,752 English Language Arts (ELA) and math teachers in grades 6-8, and 157 superintendents of the districts and charter management organizations that oversee the…

The ULINCS Project research describes how elementary teachers learned a model for integrating skills of mathematics, reading, and writing with the teaching of science which led to increased teaching skills and enhanced student achievement. This joint university and school district project was funded by an Eisenhower Grant, and focused on educators…

Education researchers and policymakers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data…

On March 29, 2007, the Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing in Washington, D.C., entitled, "How NCLB Affects Students with Disabilities." Specifically, this hearing was held to determine how the No Child Left Behind Act helps, hurts, or keeps about the same, what has been done for children with disabilities. The…

With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), state education agencies (SEAs) and local educational agencies (LEAs) have stepped up activities to broadly expand their data collection and reporting systems. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) has advocated strongly for states to build robust student-level longitudinal data systems based on…

Helen Ladd takes a comparative look at policies that the world's industrialized countries are using to assure a supply of high-quality teachers. Her survey puts U.S. educational policies and practices into international perspective. Ladd begins by examining teacher salaries--an obvious, but costly, policy tool. She finds, perhaps surprisingly,…

This brochure presents the teacher education standards adopted by Alaska's State Board of Education. The standards are as follows: (1) a teacher can describe the teacher's philosophy of education and demonstrate its relationship to the teacher's practice; (2) a teacher understands how students learn and develop and applies that knowledge in the…

The purpose of this study was to answer the following questions: 1) How well prepared are chemistry teachers in terms of content and pedagogy, 2) What are chemistry teachers trying to accomplish in their teaching and what activities do they use to meet their objectives and 3) What are the barriers to effective chemistry teaching identified by…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Where High Turnover Meets Low Performance: New Initiatives Target the Special Problems of Hard-to-Staff Schools (Alexander Russo); (2) Parents as Partners in School Reform:…

Teachers make the greatest impact on students--what they learn, how they learn it, and what they do with it. Decades of research clearly demonstrate that a quality teacher, more than any other factor, enables students to overcome obstacles to learning like poverty and can even erase the achievement gap. The problem is that many teachers lack the…

This report examines data from the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), focusing on the achievement gap in Washington state public schools. It uses scale scores rather than simply "percentage meeting standard"; analyzes data on both individual and building levels; and displays data in many different ways designed to clarify…

Middle and high school American history teachers in Lake County, Illinois, use an innovative model of professional development created through collaboration between higher education institutions and public school districts. Goals of McRAH (Model Collaboration: Rethinking American History) are to (1) raise student achievement and engagement by…

Universities and colleges accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education are facing the prospects of measuring dispositions related to teaching. Dispositions selected for teacher candidates at the University of West Alabama are characteristics desirable in N-12 candidates. This pilot study was designed to assess…

This book discusses the most frequently encountered ethical dilemmas that can arise in higher educational settings and offers tips on how to avoid such predicaments and how to handle them when they occur. Ethical dilemmas are presented as short case scenarios. The 195 cases are grouped into 22 chapters in six parts. Part 1, "The Classroom…