Tag » academic

• 

  Chicago Public Schools

  1/25/07 - National Institute for Urban School Improvement,, Equity Alliance at ASU

  Chicago Public Schools plans to be the premier urban school district in the country by providing all their students and their families with high quality instruction, outstanding academic programs, and comprehensive student development supports to prepare them for the challenges of the world of tomorrow.

• 

  Culturally Responsive Teaching Matters!

  1/26/10 - Kozeski, Elizabeth B., Equity Alliance at ASU

  "In 2000, Professor Geneva Gay wrote that culturally responsive teaching connects students’ cultural knowledge, prior experiences, and performance styles to academic knowledge and intellectual tools in ways that legitimize what students already know. By embracing the sociocultural realities and histories of students through what is taught and how, culturally responsive teachers negotiate classrooms cultures with their students that reflect the communities where students develop and grow...

• 

  Gender Equity Matters!

  1/15/10 - King Thorius, Kathleen, Equity Alliance at ASU

  Despite remarkable progress along many indicators of equitable access, participation, and outcomes of schooling, there are still persistent, pervasive issues that must be addresses, including continued disparities in access to athletics and academic programs, sexual harassment, hate crimes, and discriminatory treatment of girls and women. This What Matters brief includes strategies for: * Achieving gender equity in access and opportunities to learn * Achieving a gender-balanced...

• 

  How Multiple Intelligences Theory Can Guide Teachers' Practices: Ensuring Success for Students with Disabilities

  1/5/09 - Edward Garcia Fierros, Equity Alliance at ASU

  This On Point was produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about the Gardner's multiple intelligences (MI) theory and it is implications for Special Education. This On Point applies to all students having Special Education services and families and teachers of people with disabilities. In MI theory, Gardner indicated that the intelligence of children (i.e., thinking, problem solving, and creating) is valued differently depending on the family and...

• Learning Academies: Module 2, Mining Data

  1/1/04 - National Institute for Urban School Improvement,

  This module was designed by National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) to help building leadership teams learn the skills required to mine data and use it to make decisions. As principals and teacher leaders become confident in their ability to query their data, they will become strong role models and coaches for the entire faculty. This module takes a serious look at understanding and using data and other evidence of student performance to improve student learning. Participants...

• 

  Principals of Inclusive Schools

  1/10/09 - Christine Salisbury , Gail McGregor, Equity Alliance at ASU

  School leaders play an important role in promoting and sustaining change in schools. Without their efforts, schools cannot change or improve to become places where all students are welcome, and where all students learn essential academic and non-academic lessons in preparation for life in the community. Nowhere is this initiative more important than in urban schools where many students have been left behind, shunted aside, or asked to learn with poor or inadequate buildings, materials, and...

• Bridging the gap between academics & athletics

  1/1/98 - Jones, Dianne C.

  A study at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater examined the validity of the stereotypes that student athletes were inferior students, selected easier majors, and did not graduate. A review of grade point averages proved that the student athletes at the university were not academically inferior to the general student population. A tabulation of majors showed that student athletes did not select perceived "easier" majors than the general student body. Furthermore, an analysis of graduation...

• 

  Chronic early absence

  1/9/10 - Education Commission of the States,

  "At the core of school improvement and education reform is an assumption so widely understood that it is rarely invoked: students have to be present and engaged in order to learn. That is why the discovery that thousands of our youngest students are academically at-risk — because of extended absences when they first embark upon their school careers — is as remarkable as it is consequential. Growing evidence indicates that chronic absence (missing 10% or more of a school year, nearly one...

• Closing the Achievement Gap in Math: The Long-Term Effects of Eighth-Grade Algebra

  1/1/06 - Spielhagen, Frances R.

  Recent changes in national and state mathematics standards have increased the level of algebraic thinking taught in younger grades. These changes have prompted more inclusive curriculum designs that open the opportunity to enroll in advanced mathematics courses at younger ages. Of particular interest to this study is the access to eighth-grade algebra, once traditionally reserved for select populations. This study examined long-term academic outcomes for students who did or did not enroll in...

• Closing the Achievement Gap Through Teacher Collaboration: Facilitating Multiple Trajectories of Teacher Learning

  1/1/07 - Levine, Thomas H., Marcus, Alan S.

  How should district and school leaders improve education for students traditionally underserved by public education: by increasing control over teaching and curriculum, or by empowering groups of teachers to have more collective autonomy, responsibility, and opportunities for professional learning? The second approach-promoting multiple trajectories of learning among groups of teachers-has advantages, as well as some challenges, as a means of closing various achievement gaps. Sociocultural...

• Closing the Achievement Gap With Curriculum Enrichment and Differentiation: One School's Story

  1/1/08 - Beecher, Margaret, Sweeny, Sheelah M.

  This article summarizes a unique approach to reducing the achievement gap that strategically blended differentiated curriculum with schoolwide enrichment teaching and learning. The theories of enrichment and instructional differentiation were translated into practice in an elementary school that had previously embraced a remedial paradigm. This enrichment approach resulted in improved student achievement and the reduction of the achievement gap between rich and poor and among different...

• 

  Expaning and improving early education for Hispanics

  1/14/09 - The National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics,

  "In pursuing this work, the Task Force has given attention to the question of how to use early childhood education to improve the educational fortunes of all Hispanic children, including those from low SES, middle class, and high SES families. This is because, compared with their White counterparts, children from these Hispanic segments are doing less well academically, on average, from the time they start school. However, the Task Force has given highest priority to finding ways to improve...

• 

  Helping Students Navigate the Path to College: What High Schools Can Do

  1/18/09 - William G. Tierney , Thomas Bailey, Jill Constantine, Neal Finkelstein, Nicole Farmer Hurd

  Access to higher education remains a challenge for many students who face academic and informational barriers to college entry. This guide targets high schools and school districts, and focuses on effective practices that prepare students academically for college, assist them in completing the steps to college entry, and improve their likelihood of enrolling in college.

• 

  Mathematics achievement of Spanish-speaking kindergarteners and the impact of teacher characteristics: A mediation hypothesis

  1/3/09 - Jensen, Bryant

  The number of children beginning public school in the United States who speak Spanish as their native language—Spanish-speaking kindergartners (SSK)—continues to increase as the proportional quantity of children from immigrant families rises. SSK academically lag behind their peers in all subjects at the beginning of kindergarten and throughout their educational careers. Among school factors that contribute to achievement differences, teacher characteristics have been shown to contribute...

• More Than One Gap: Dropout Rate Gaps Between and Among Black, Hispanic, and White Students

  1/1/07 - Carpenter Ii, Dick M., Ramirez, Al

  The achievement gap, traditionally measured by test scores, also can be documented by dropout behavior. Examining dropout behavior among Black, White, and Hispanic students, with a particular focus on gaps within groups and not just between Whites and minorities, shows a clearer picture of the achievement gap. The results of our study show multiple achievement gaps both between and within groups, ultimately concluding that within-group gaps were often more significant than gaps between...

• PART III: CREATING MULTICULTURAL CLASSROOMS: Under-Prepared Students: Essentials beyond Academics

  1/1/07 - Ford, Theron N., Glimps, Blanche, Giallourakis, Angie

  Teacher education programs continue to struggle with preparing highly qualified teachers ready to meet the academic, cultural, exceptionality and linguistic challenges, which are increasingly the reality of American's classrooms. Despite increased academic rigor in such programs, many emerging teachers are still ill prepared to each effectively students from cultural and racial backgrounds different from their own. The article asserts that this is due in part to a lack of an appropriate...