Student absenteeism in Broward County Public Schools was examined longitudinally from 1998-99 through the first semester of the 2003-04 school year. Historically, secondary students tend to register more excused and unexcused absences than elementary students; however, data from this study show overall absence rates have declined. Findings reveal…

With the revamping of the Canada Immigration Act in 1985, the demographic profile of new arrivals to Canada took a marked shift to place a priority on better educated, business-class immigrants. Most of these immigrants are from the Pacific Rim, and they have high expectations for the academic achievement of their children in the Canadian school.…

A major issue in educational research involves taking into consideration the multilevel nature of the data. Since the late 1980s, attempts have been made to model social science data that conform to a nested structure. Among other models, two-level structural equation modelling or two-level path modelling and hierarchical linear modelling are two…

The structural validity of the Ohio Ninth Grade Proficiency Test was investigated with the test scores of 713 eighth graders who had their first opportunity to take the test in March 1999 in a large urban school district in Ohio. The study examined a hypothetical structure of the test to determine its fit to the data. Confirmatory factor analysis…

This study investigated the effects of learning materials with different interaction levels on achievement and motivational perceptions of college students in a web-based learning environment with a posttest only experimental design. There were three groups in this study: control group, reactive interaction group, and proactive interaction group.…

Special education, elementary school students with emotional/behavioral disorders (EBD) were investigated for neuropsychological deficits with the NEPSY battery. Over half (54%) scored two or more standard deviations below the test mean on at least one of the four functional domains, especially Language and Attention/Executive Functions. The NEPSY…

A survey of 414 child care providers in southeastern Wisconsin reveals that cost as well as low wages and lack of benefits for workers can constrain providers from pursuing improvements to child-care quality. Of survey respondents, approximately half of whom are home-based and half center-based, 13% have at least three of five structural factors…

The purpose of this study was to examine self-determination and achievement motivation as predictors of successful school performance for high school African American males enrolled in an urban Texas school district. The students (N = 108) were placed into two distinct groups: higher-performing and lower-performing African American males based…

This article explores the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) on the behavior of teachers and school leaders, specifically the centralizing, standardizing tendencies of the legislation, and juxtaposes their reactions to the types of teaching and leadership required to lead 21st-century schools. The authors argue that the isomorphic…

Jigsaw is a well-known and frequently used technique in cooperative learning. As part of ongoing studies to develop the technique, this research concentrates on exploring its use with prospective elementary school teachers (PTs). In order to establish PTs' views regarding Jigsaw and its effectiveness on their academic success, a proficiency test…

From the halls of Congress to the local elementary school, conversations on education reform have tossed around the term "achievement gap" as though people all know precisely what that means. As it's commonly used, "achievement gap" refers to the differences in scores on state or national achievement tests between various…

This study investigated the effect of Further Mathematics on students' achievement in mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics in Ogun State, Nigeria. Two Local Government Areas (LGAs) were judgmentally selected from the state. Ten secondary schools were also purposively selected from the two LGAs (Five schools from each LGA). At least twenty…

This paper describes an ongoing project to create an online version of a reading programme, a custom-designed English language proficiency course at a university in Japan. Following an interactionist view of second language acquisition, it was hypothesised that comprehension of a reading passage could be enhanced by online materials promoting…

This fourth edition of the "ES Review" brings together, in one setting, some of the best work from 2009-10. It features: (1) Teacher Quality (Teachers at Work: Improving Teacher Quality Through School Design (Elena Silva); Understanding Teachers Contracts (Andrew J. Rotherham); How Teachers Unions Lost the Media (Richard Whitmire and…

There is considerable debate about the relative importance of family versus school factors in producing academic and nonacademic student outcomes, and whether and how their impacts vary across different student groups. In addition to critically reviewing and synthesizing earlier work, this study extends the literature by (a) using the ECLS-K, a…