When the Broad Prize for Urban Education was created in 2002, billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad said he hoped the awards, in addition to rewarding high-performing school districts, would foster healthy competition; boost the prestige of urban education, long viewed as dysfunctional; and showcase best practices. Over the 10 years the prize has…

A state law, which helped Tennessee win Race to the Top money, pushed schools to implement a system that had limited pilot-testing. Education officials in Tennessee are taking flak from teachers and unions for rushing the implementation of the new teacher-evaluation system that will eventually undergird tenure decisions--a move, some worry, that…

The author reports on the issue of bullying that rose on state legislative agendas this year, with 21 states passing anti-bullying laws--some of which expanded schools' responsibilities to keep a check on any harassment that goes on among students. States set out to write clear definitions of bullying and to regulate school policies and…

The author reports on how U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' opinions in youths'-rights cases reflect his "originalist" thinking. Justice Thomas, 63, marks two decades on the court Oct. 23, and a hallmark of his tenure is his willingness to carve out a solitary stance on certain issues. Particularly in cases involving schools and the…

Computer-based instruction in kindergarten classrooms can be controversial, but one Los Angeles charter school is showing promising results and plans to expand the hybrid approach. The school conducted an experiment with a teaching method called blended learning, in which students learn from computers as well as teachers. The kindergarten…

Policymakers are promoting expanded learning time to help low-performing students, but the know-how and resources for implementation are lacking. Providence's expanded-school-day pilot is a partnership between the school district and the Providence After School Alliance, a nonprofit that manages after-school programs for low-income students in…

The author reports on a long-stalled, bipartisan rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act approved by the Senate education committee which faces steep political hurdles, including opposition from civil rights and business leaders who see it as a step back on student and school accountability and from Republican lawmakers who say it does not pull…

This special report examines how K-12 professional development is taking a more digital and freewheeling approach to educator training. The report--which also features a webinar and online chat--shows how professional development programs are now blending face-to-face and online training, incorporating social networking tools, offering…

Psycho-educational researchers have often suggested that Emotional Intelligence (EI) is critical to academic success (Drago, 2004; La Civita, 2003), yet there is hardly any research that has ever addressed the question in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between EI as conceptualized by Mayer…

The purpose of this study was to investigate gender differences in self-concept, self-esteem, and depression among gifted (n = 68) and non-gifted (n = 174) adolescents in Lebanon. Participants were 242 adolescents (110 males and 132 females), with a mean age of 13.9 years. Four measures were used: DISCOVER assessment, Piers-Harris 2 self-concept…

In typical short-term teacher development workshops, experts model instructional practices for teachers so that teachers can then adapt the model to their own situation. Such workshops are often ineffective because of the lack of adjustment before modeling and the overreliance on teacher adaptation of existing practices. In this article, we argue…

The purpose of this study was to assess the health status and physical health of international students at five American universities. International students in the United States were asked to compare the status of their health before and after coming to the United States. Findings suggested that health status of international students declined…

When moving to a new environment, international graduate students faced a series of transitional difficulties which impact their behaviors and psychological well-being in learning. However, few studies have specifically addressed their experiences with academic adaptation. To understand these students' academic needs, this study explored the…

With the proliferation of technological innovations, especially information and communication technologies, there is a rapidly increasing trend for universities to offer online courses (Tallent-Runnels, Thomas, Lan, Cooper, Ahern, Shaw, & Liu, 2006). Rationalized within the premises of cost and time efficiency, online education promises a new mode…

In the United States, race--perhaps more than any other sociocultural factor--is the most challenging and complex to understand (Omi & Winant, 1994). Much of this difficulty stems from the powerful yet often unacknowledged role that race has and continues to play in the U.S. context. Race is without a doubt a complicated, contentious, and highly…