Developing trusting relationships between teachers and students in urban secondary schools everywhere is a challenging task that is essential to maintaining an effective learning environment. Trust involves a fragile web of relationships nurtured through positive daily interactions. We examined strategies that US urban high school teachers used to…

This article describes an investigation of the career-related experiences of 73 male K-2 teachers from across Nevada. Data were acquired and are discussed in three main categories: (1) perceived factors influencing men's initial choice to become a K-2 teacher; (2) perceived factors impacting men's present level of enjoyment in being a K-2 teacher;…

A large percentage of African American students comprise special education classes; yet few African Americans are special education teachers. Determinants of success for African Americans pursuing graduate study previously cited in the literature include academic and financial support, and faculty-student mentoring relationships. This qualitative…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires that every classroom be staffed with a "qualified teacher." A growing literature is focusing on what causes teachers to leave their jobs and/or the teaching occupation, rather than solely on factors influencing teacher recruitment. This article uses nationally representative data from the…

Prescriptive writings on performance evaluation have argued that splitting the administrative (summative) and developmental (formative) roles will lead to evaluatees being less defensive and more open to discussing performance problems and taking suggestions, and that without the responsibility for making an administrative evaluation, evaluators…

In order to understand and predict students' achievement and persistence at learning activities, many contemporary motivational models consider how much students are motivated for their school work. However, students' achievement and persistence might not only be affected by their amount of study motivation, but also by the motivation to engage in…

This report highlights the importance of addressing the unique set of needs of middle-level students. The struggle over structuring and content of middle-level education--the K-8 versus middle-school/junior-high argument--mirrors to a considerable extent the broader recurring battle of traditionalism versus progressivism. There are few empirical…

On September 13, 2006, Texas state educational and policy leaders participated in the Texas Education Forum to discuss ways to improve student transition from high school to postsecondary education and careers. The forum was sponsored by the League for Innovation in the Community College and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and…

Despite increasing recognition that a high school diploma is a minimum requirement for success in the workplace, nearly half of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students fail to graduate, and in some CPS high schools, more students drop out than graduate. Research on dropping out has shown that the decision to persist in or leave school is affected by…

Inspired by the 1990 Jomtien World Conference on Education for All and by the experience of non-governmental organisations such as BRAC, Save the Children/USA established a community schools project in southern Mali, working with 777 villages to establish and run their own primary schools between 1992 and 1998. These schools enrolled over 45,000…

The purpose of the study was to explore the academic careers of students who took AP Exams and to compare their careers with those who did not take AP Exams. For most AP Exams, students with AP grades of 3 or better had higher grade averages in intermediate college courses than did non-AP students who first took an introductory course. Two…

The National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality (NCCTQ) was launched in 2005 as part of a comprehensive system of content-based technical assistance to support states in implementing the priorities of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. NCCTQ's mission is to support Regional Comprehensive Centers (RCCs), states, and other education…

Attrition in engineering programs continues to be an important issue for universities across the country. This study examined the connection between student performance in barrier courses and persistence in engineering. Quantitative results showed that high school academic experience, student behaviors (including study habits, work habits, coping…

The Biology Intensive Orientation for Students (BIOS) Program was designed to assess the impact of a 5-d intensive prefreshman program on success and retention of biological science majors at Louisiana State University. The 2005 pilot program combined content lectures and examinations for BIOL 1201, Introductory Biology for Science Majors, as well…

In order to gather data on the causes of student attrition, a study was conducted at a Florida community college to identify the relative importance of a set of selected environmental factors and student characteristics. A cohort was developed from the fall 1990 first-time-in-college students and was tracked for 2 years using the college's…