Tag » content

• "PRACTICING WHAT WE PREACH: AN ARGUMENT FOR COOPERATIVE LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATORS"

  1/1/05 - Coke, Pamela K.

  Van Allen (1996) supports a paradigm shift in how Americans think about education, from a view of school as hierarchy to school as continuum. While the relationship between elementary and secondary education is not always visible, teachers can model cooperative learning for students by working as a team across grade levels to solve problems, complete tasks, and accomplish common goals, such as reducing gaps and redundancies in education. Schools could respond more productively to elementary...

• A "Gap-Gazing" Fetish In Mathematics Education? Problematizing Research on the Achievement Gap

  1/1/08 - Gutiérrez, Rochelle

  A substantial amount of research in mathematics education seeks to document disparities in achievement between middle-class White students and students who are Black, Latina/Latino, First Nations, English language learners, or working class. I outline the dangers in maintaining an achievement-gap focus. These dangers include offering little more than a static picture of inequities, supporting deficit thinking and negative narratives about students of color and working-class students...

• A Critical Race Analysis of the Achievement Gap in the United States: Politics, Reality, and Hope

  1/1/06 - Taylor, Edward

  Federal educational legislation in the United States has focused increased attention on the racial achievement gap between minority and majority students. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation has forced high-stakes accountability in public schools, with the assumption that these policies will create performance pressures on schools to improve achievement. Yet, there is considerable evidence that performance pressures alone are unlikely to reverse long-standing racialized policies and...

• A How-to Plan for Widening the Gap

  1/1/09 - Marshall, Kim

  The article discusses ways that instructional decision making could widen achievement gaps for students. The author suggests educational leaders might increase achievement gaps through policies that benefit advantaged students, such as assigning novice teachers to classes with disadvantaged students, reducing professional development regarding classroom management and reducing classroom activities. She suggests effective teaching, a positive classroom environment, teacher collaboration...

• A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION FOR 2007: INCREASE UNDERSTANDING OF ADOLESCENT LITERACY TO HELP CLOSE THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP

  1/1/07 - Donlevy, Jim

  The academic Achievement Gap persists even as calls intensify to close it. One fruitful area for helping to address achievement disparities is adolescent literacy. Although a great deal is known about teaching reading in the early grades, not as much is known about middle and high school literacy, areas where the Achievement Gap becomes more pronounced. This article reviews previous New Year's resolutions, calls for greater understanding of adolescent literacy, and describes some...

• 

  A systematic comparison of the American Diploma Project English language arts college readiness standards with those of the ACT, College Board, and Standards for Success

  1/9/10 - Rolfhus, Eric, Decker, Lauren E., Brite, Jessica L., Lois Gregory

  "This study of four national English language arts standards compares the content of three sets of standards with a benchmark set, the American Diploma Project (ADP), to see how closely the sets agree on what students should know in English language arts to prepare for college. The match between each of the three comparison sets and the 62 content statements in the ADP benchmark varies, from 77 percent of the statements for the College Board College Readiness Standards and 68 percent for...

• Academic achievement of homeless and highly mobile children in an urban school district: Longitudinal evidence on risk, growth, and resilience

  1/1/09 - Obradović, Jelena, Long, Jeffrey D., Cutuli, J. J., Chi-Keung, Chan, Hinz, Elizabeth, Heistad, David, Masten, Ann S.

  Longitudinal growth trajectories of reading and math achievement were studied in four primary school grade cohorts (GCs) of a large urban district to examine academic risk and resilience in homeless and highly mobile (H/HM) students. Initial achievement was assessed when student cohorts were in the second, third, fourth, and fifth grades, and again 12 and 18 months later. Achievement trajectories of H/HM students were compared to low-income but nonmobile students and all other tested...

• Academic language across grade levels and content areas

  1/1/08 - Southeast Comprehensive Center,

  Robin Scarcella, PhD, director of the ESL program, University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute, discusses the challenges associated with academic language as well as ways to ensure that all students learn academic language.

• 

  Academic literacy instruction for adolescents: A guidance document from the Center on Instruction.

  1/14/09 - Torgesen, J. K., Houston, D. D. , Rissman, L. M. , Decker, S. M. , Roberts, G. , Vaughn, S. , Wexler, J., Francis, D. J. , Rivera, M. O., Lesaux, N.

  This document developed by the Center on Instruction's Reading, Special Education and ELL Strands makes recommendations for improving literacy-related instruction in the content areas or across the entire school day, interventions for students reading below grade level, and recommendations for supporting literacy development in adolescent English language learners.

• Access to Higher Education: The Hope for Democratic Schooling in America

  1/1/04 - Burke, J. Bruce, Johnstone, Michelle

  The American aspiration for higher education as a road to a better life for everyone is threatened. As the economic and social gap between the upper third of the population and the bottom third widens, so access to better education, especially to higher education, becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. The traditional role of hope in the American Democratic Dream of a just and fair society is being eroded, as increasing numbers of Americans are marginalized, jailed, recruited into...

• Accountability Standards, and the Growing Achievement Gap: Lessons from the Past Half-Century

  1/1/06 - Harris, Douglas N., Herrington, Carolyn D.

  The rise of accountability policies during the early 1990s coincided with an increase in the achievement gap between white and minority students, reversing decades of steady improvement in outcome equity. This article explores the policies that helped to reduce the achievement gap before 1990, the effects of the subsequent shift toward accountability, and what can be learned from past successes to guide the future development of accountability systems. An extensive review of research...

• Accountability, Standards, and the Growing Achievement Gap: Lessons from the Past Half-Century

  1/1/06 - Harris, Douglas N., Herrington, Carolyn D.

  The rise of accountability policies during the early 1990s coincided with an increase in the achievement gap between white and minority students, reversing decades of steady improvement in outcome equity. This article explores the policies that helped to reduce the achievement gap before 1990, the effects of the subsequent shift toward accountability, and what can be learned from past successes to guide the future development of accountability systems. An extensive review of research...

• Achieving inclusion through CLAD: Collaborative Learning Assessment through Dialogue

  1/1/08 - Fitch, E. Frank, Hulgin, Kathleen M.

  This study measures the effectiveness of Collaborative Learning Assessment through Dialogue (CLAD) on reading achievement in inclusive classrooms in the USA. The CLAD process involved students collaboratively completing multiple-choice quizzes, using dialogue and critical thinking to reach consensus and receiving immediate feedback on their responses. The procedure was implemented in three third-grade classrooms (n = 30) in a midwestern elementary school for the purpose of reducing a...

• African American Male Adolescents, Schooling (and Mathematics): Deficiency, Rejection, and Achievement

  1/1/06 - Stinson, David W.

  The academic achievement gap, particularly the mathematics achievement gap, between Black students and their White counterparts has been well documented with numerical facts. As mathematics education researchers attempt to develop theories and practices that assist in eradicating the gap, they would serve mathematics education well if they would expand the sphere of their research into the sociocultural arena. To assist in expanding the sphere, this article presents a review of key...

• AFRICAN AMERICAN PARENTS IN THE SEARCH STAGE OF COLLEGE CHOICE

  1/1/06 - Smith, Michael J., Fleming, Michael K.

  A serious imbalance exists in today's African American undergraduate student population in which the number of women far outnumber the number of men. Although at the macro level, political, sociological, and economic forces frame this gender enrollment gap, scant research has explored microlevel influences such as parents and parenting. This study uses a qualitative methodology and Hossler's model of college choice to examine African American parent involvement during the search stage. The...

• 

  An early look at the Economic Stimulus Package and the public schools: Perspectives from state leaders

  1/7/09 - Center on Education Policy,

  "This report looks at the early efforts of states to implement the elementary and secondary education provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The findings are drawn from a survey of officials in state education agencies and governors’ offices in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Key findings concern the financial condition of state education budgets, progress toward meeting the reform assurances, interest in national content standards and the Race to the Top...