Although instructional technology has made large gains in the last 15 years in terms of the quantity and quality of computers available in schools, major questions remain about the effects of all this technology on student achievement. The author has conducted a series of studies to address these questions. By analyzing test score and…

The purpose of this article is to comment on the prior article entitled "Examining Instruction, Achievement and Equity with NAEP mathematics data," by Sarah Theule Lubienski. That article claims that a prior article by the author suffered from three weaknesses: (1) An attempt to justify No Child Left Behind (NCLB); (2) drawing causal…

National science assessments and international comparisons indicate that science achievement in the United States is stagnant or declining. Of the many steps needed to improve U.S. science education, the authors write, none is more important than improving teacher training and preparation. Analyses of scores on the National Assessment of…

This report presents findings from a national study of the relationship between different uses of educational technology and various educational outcomes. Data were drawn from the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in mathematics, consisting of national samples of 6,227 fourth graders and 7,146 eighth graders. Data include…

Little agreement exists on which school expenditures and resources are most likely to improve student resources or whether resources really matter at all. This study compiles a national database of school finance information and analyzes the data to address the importance of school expenditures. Data were collected from the National Assessment of…

Few studies have compared the educational experiences and outcomes of students attending historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) to those of students attending traditionally white institutions. This study consists of three analyses that contain some justification for the continued existence of HBCUs, threatened by court decisions that…

This report study explored how improving teachers' classroom practice could improve teacher quality. Data were examined on 7,146 8th graders who took the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) mathematics assessment in 1996 and 7,776 8th graders who took the NAEP science assessment in 1996. Three types of teacher quality were measured:…

The links between the characteristics of teacher education institutions, their programs, and teacher effectiveness as measured by scores on teacher licensure examinations were studied for the Southeast United States. Four sources of data were used: (1) data on 39,140 prospective teachers who took the Praxis II examinations for teacher licensure;…

Applies LISREL 8 to data from the 1992 National Assessment of Educational Progress (mathematics, eighth grade) and the Common Core of Data of U.S. school districts. Proposes a positive relationship between per-pupil expenditures and achievement due to reduced class size. (MJP)

Explored the link between classroom practices and student academic performance by applying multilevel modeling to the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress in mathematics. Findings show that the effects of classroom practices, when added to other teacher characteristics, are comparable in size to those of student background, suggesting…

Relates various types of educational spending to mean mathematics achievement and its social distribution among students using a nationally representative database of 7,217 12th graders. Spending on instruction and capital expenditures was related to differences in achievement between socioeconomic status groups, with lower spending associated…

Discusses Educational Testing Service (ETS) findings that teachers matter most for student achievement. ETS used 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data to examine relationships between student achievement and teacher characteristics. This paper critiques the research, noting serious flaws in the study design, highlighting…

Studied the possibility of using large-scale data and methods to study classroom practices in reading comprehension using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Findings suggest that such studies are both feasible and necessary. (SLD)

The relationship between basic instructional practices and a student's performance can be measured by using advance statistical techniques. The assessment done by National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) on different subjects like mathematics, science, reading and civics throughout United States suggest that instructions emphasizing…

No Child Left Behind calls for schools to close the achievement gap between races in math and reading. One possible way for schools to do so is to encourage their teachers to engage in practices that disproportionately benefit their minority students. The current study applies the technique of Hierarchical Linear Modeling to a nationally…