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Eric.ed.gov – Starting Young: Massachusetts Birth-3rd Grade Policies That Support Children’s Literacy Development

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Massachusetts is one of a handful of states that is often recognized as a leader in public education, and for good reason. The Commonwealth consistently outperforms most states on national reading and math tests and often leads the pack in education innovations. “Starting Young: Massachusetts Birth-3rd Grade Policies that Support Children’s Literacy Development,” a report from the Early & Elementary Education Policy team at New America, examines state policies and local initiatives that aim to give children a strong start and offers recommendations to help ensure more students are moving up the learning staircase. Massachusetts has taken important steps, but to have a larger sustainable impact on children’s literacy development, more is needed. The report also provides a list of interviews and notes. Link til kilde

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Eric.ed.gov – Does the Middle School Model Make a Difference? Relating Measures of School Effectiveness to Recommended Best Practices

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Since the emergence of middle schools as distinct educational settings in the 1960s, proponents of the model have advocated for structures and approaches that best meet the particular developmental needs of young adolescents. Middle school researchers have developed frameworks of best practices for schools that have been widely, if not uniformly, adopted. However, there is a paucity of large-scale quantitative research on the efficacy of such best practices. In this study we used state-level administrative data from Texas to estimate the school-level contribution to standardized test scores in math and language arts, along with absenteeism. We then regressed these value-added quantities on indicators of middle school structures, along with research-supported predictors of school efficacy. Results showed that schools with fewer classes in the school day and higher… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – STEM Education: Proceed with Caution

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) movement has developed from a non-educational rationale. Although some think it may enliven the delivery of maths and science in classrooms, the social and economic rationales are those that have initiated this movement. Spurred on by the global financial crisis, it is hoped that coordination and integration of STEM activities will better equip a workforce for dealing with the contemporary nature of business and industry, and encourage more school leavers to seek further training and employment in areas of engineering and science. The problem for educators here is that the consequent absence of a sound educational rationale for this combination of subjects inhibits its development. There needs to be a reason for integrating these subjects which relates to quality learning… Continue Reading