Through story grammar instruction, low-achieving students are discovering that literature can be fun to read and perhaps have application to their own lives. (Author/TE)

In Sheltered English classrooms, teachers help Limited English Proficient and Fluent English Proficient students through the difficult task of learning academic content while mastering a second language. (Author/TE)

Project AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is a four-year elective high school program that prepares underachieving, disadvantaged students to attend college. The program is now implemented in 58 secondary schools in San Diego County, California. (TE)

The Ambassador Program, a partnership between Ferron Elementary School and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, pairs university students with at-risk elementary students once a week to serve as role models. (TE)

At Rough Rock Demonstration School in Arizona, a bilingual, bicultural curriculum helps Navajo students discover the power and validity of their own lives as tools for learning. (Author/TE)

To help Native American students succeed in school, educators must pay attention to the sociocultural context in which learning takes place. By following several simple precepts, teachers of culturally and linguistically diverse students can enhance language learning. (Author/TE)

As more and more White middle-class families adopt children of other races, educators need to be even more sensitive to the individuality of their students. (Author/TE)

Apollo High School in Simi Valley, California, is motivating at-risk students to strive for success by providing them with attention, acceptance, appreciation, and affection. (TE)

In today's political climate, standardized tests are inadequate and misleading as achievement measures. Educators should employ a variety of measures, improve standardized test content and format, and remove incentives for teaching to the test. Focusing on raising test scores distorts instruction and renders scores less credible. Includes 13…

Describes the teacher-developed California Assessment Program (CAP) writing measure, designed to support California's reform curriculum and based on matrix sampling techniques. This program will be supplemented by literature and mathematics assessments. The greatest challenge is designing an assessment to match the state's new history and social…

Connecticut has two statewide student assessment programs. The Connecticut Assessment of Educational Progress uses sampling procedures to examine state program effectiveness periodically in 11 mandated subject areas. The Connecticut Mastery Tests annually monitor mathematics and language arts progress for every fourth-, sixth-, and eighth- grade…

Presents the case of Daryl, a fourth grader who performs well in daily classroom work, but cannot tolerate testing. Because of New York State testing mandates, this child will probably repeat fourth grade or be assigned to special education classes. Clearly, alternative measures building on children's strengths are needed. Includes two references.…

School districts are increasingly instituting kindergarten retention policies and establishing readiness and pre-first-grade transition programs. Using readiness tests to classify, promote, and retain children is inappropriate and costly. Various high stakes tests are reviewed and alternative strategies suggested. Includes 18 references. (MLH)

While working to reconcile developmentally sound curricula and instruction with district and state requirements, faculty at a Dalton, Georgia, primary school were hindered by mandated standardized tests. Since uncovering several negative aspects of such testing, faculty have been struggling to teach a developmental and test-driven math program…

In this interview, George Madaus explains how the misuse of tests corrupts the inferences drawn from them. He calls for cost-benefit evaluations of high stakes tests and challenges educators to seek better accountability methods, test student samples, use multiple indicators, and include teacher judgment in the process. (MLH)