Describes a meta-analysis conducted on six studies that attempted to ascertain the effect of academic and social integration on student persistence in community colleges. Indicates that both academic and social integration significantly impacts persistence, which is consistent with Tinto's model of student retention. Contains four data tables and…

A district-university partnership program provides an alternative route to teacher certification for noncredentialed special education teachers working in a rural California desert region. The program features locally available courses, on-campus summer courses, an alternative internship credential, collaborative structure, a coach-of-coaches…

Examines preservice teacher education and professional development in Ireland, presenting a case study of graduates from one Irish college of education during their first 10 years of teaching elementary school and noting participants' involvement in professional development and graduate studies. Participants had no formal induction programs,…

Access to reliable technology. Help from classroom aides. Out-of-classroom duties. Planning time with colleagues. Administrator accessibility. All those working conditions and more play a vital part in whether good teachers feel sufficiently satisfied to stay in their schools. Now, policymakers are beginning to gather evidence on just how much…

This study examined the engagement of students with learning disabilities and emotional disturbance and the relation of this engagement to school completion. Participants were parent-identified students with learning disabilities (LD) and emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD) and comparison groups of average-achieving peers and students without…

Due to the dearth of qualified professional teachers, policymakers and professional development programs need to focus on improving the quality of high school mathematics teaching in order to diffuse this crisis. In the middle of this crisis, the demand for new teachers is predicted to rise significantly in the next ten years. Based on the…

The purpose of implementing an assessment and accountability program in an urban school district is to improve student learning of worthwhile content. Current levels of achievement in most U.S. urban districts are unacceptably low. Average achievement test results conceal the fact that achievement levels of students of color are substantially…

This article chronicles the evolution of legislation for Texas open-enrollment charter schools to their implementation by demonstrating how these schools have (or have not) used their freedom from state-mandated requirements to develop innovative learning environments as well as to bring innovative curricula into the classroom. The investigative…

Four African American teacher-researcher-participants contributed to this self-reflective autobiographical, narrative analysis of learning to teach, becoming certified, and teaching. Each participant reflected on her educational stories of experience, as all four were educated on White university campuses and transitioned to teaching in…

Current figures (CILT, 2005) indicate that, whilst the numbers of students taking post-16 modern foreign language public examinations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have declined overall between 2000 and 2004, one of the biggest drops is for German, which has experienced a steady year-on-year decline over the same period at the full A…

The growth of multi-institutional attendance and discontinuous enrollment poses a challenge to linear approaches to college retention and subsequent graduation rates. Linear methodologies have a level of failure built in and cannot fully measure community college institutional effectiveness. This article analyzes student entry and subsequent…

Principals are the leaders of their schools, they are responsible for both student and professional learning. With thought, organization, and communication, welcoming and assisting beginning teachers as they enter their new profession can be done efficiently and effectively. An administrator who not only understands the difficult induction year,…

In this research our purpose was to examine the effectiveness of a program in retaining women in science, mathematics, and engineering majors. We compared undergraduate women participating in a support and mentoring program with nonprogram students in terms of their retention in these majors. The pretest and posttest results over one academic year…

Lowering the dropout rate of incoming mathematics and science students, and enhancing the provision of mathematics support for freshmen are two important aims of the University of Amsterdam. The approach recently adopted to support first year students is to set up a diagnostic pretest and posttest and use these tests to identify students being at…

Workplace stress and its impact upon retention levels are becoming an increasing concern within the teaching profession (Brown, Davis, & Johnson, 2002; Jarvis, 2002). Research has largely focused upon the effects of environmental factors, whilst noting that it is the interplay between the individual and the environment which may hold the key to…