Special education teachers in Georgia are required to develop grade level tasks, reflecting grade level standards, teach the tasks and document the progress of their students with significant cognitive disabilities in the areas of math, science, literature, and social studies. The teachers must then compile the evidence of the students' progress…

Barriers to entering addiction medicine (AM) have led to a persisting workforce shortage. To address this problem, the Chapter of Addiction Medicine (AChAM) was formed in 2001 as a subdivision of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). Through consultation, AChAM has identified the scope of practice and offered fellowship to suitable…

Many examination agencies, policy makers, media houses, and the public at large make high-stakes decisions based on test scores. Unfortunately, in some cases educational tests are not statistically equated to account for test differences over time, which leads to inappropriate interpretations of students' performance. In this study we illustrate…

Currently school reform discourse encourages states to adopt college readiness standards. Meanwhile, federal and state accountability and related mandated reforms remain a policy concern. As such, it is important to examine the interplay between accountability and the establishment of a college-going culture in high "minority", high…

Developing teaching practices that meet the needs of Second Language Learners (SLL) calls for models of apprenticeship in which teacher candidates acquire competency on how to create learning spaces where students discover, experience and construct knowledge rather than solely practicing skills. The aforesaid argument has an implication when…

This is a case study about a group of African American parents that banded together in an effort to increase their own involvement, the involvement of other African American parents, and the success of African American students at one public high school. The various ways in which this group of parents sought to accomplish their goals, however, was…

The study under investigation was the impact of early literacy and behavior sanctions on Black male matriculation towards graduation in a selected South Carolina school district. Attendance and course failure in English strongly predicted whether or not students graduated from high school. Early literacy is the foundation for academic success in…

This study was an action research design which examined the effects of infusing the local history of North Alabama into the traditional Early American History curriculum to assess the effect on student interest, multicultural awareness, and success on the Alabama High School Graduation Exam history portion. This study found no significance when…

Can poor student performance on high-stakes assessment, including high school exit exams, indicate gaps in school and district curriculum and instruction? How might this affect students identified with special needs, and what could it mean in terms of a free and appropriate public education? This case illustrates how a student receiving special…

To date, there is no article that addresses the dissertation process in the vocative case to demystify doctoral expectations. This article provides guidance to doctoral students, within accredited doctoral counselor education and supervision programs, who face paralyzing emotions as they navigate through degree attainment processes. Herein, the…

The city of New Orleans has embarked on an historic experiment reinventing its schools--once considered among the worst in the country--from a centralized, single district model of education to a two district model in which both the Recovery School District (RSD) and the preexisting Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) both operate direct run and…

As Congress debates how to structure the next iteration of federal school accountability, a new national study has raised serious concerns about the effectiveness of test-based incentives to improve education. A blue-ribbon committee of the National Academies' National Research Council undertook a nearly decade-long study of test-based incentive…

This article reports data from a larger study investigating the changing patterns of entry for GCSE geography over the last 20 years, but focuses on the period 2003-7. Entries for geography GCSE have fallen since 1996 but the patterns vary with attainment, type of school and geographical location. It is shown that government policy has both a…

The San Jose State University Electrical Engineering (EE) Department implemented a skill audit exam for graduating seniors in 1999 with the purpose of assessing the teaching and the students' mastery of core concepts in EE. However, consistent low scores for the first years in which the test was administered suggested that students had little…

In the age of educational accountability, national and statewide measures are assumed to secure and improve the educational quality. However, educators often wonder how much a new accountability measure may improve the actual teaching and learning practices when the agents of change (teachers) are not active participants of such educational…