Two Colorado math teachers attribute their participation in a professional learning community to their ability to achieve the highest growth scores of any tested level (3rd through 10th grade) in the three tested subjects (reading, writing, and math) in their 22,000-student school district.

If educators want to engage girls in learning, they must align teaching practices with girls' specific needs. In a study modeled after Reichert and Hawley's study of boys, the authors learned that lessons with hands-on learning, elements of creativity, multimodal projects, and class discussions all worked to stimulate girls'…

No Child Left Behind has profoundly limited the teaching of history over the past 10 years. Now, the Common Core State Standards offers an opportunity to reverse this decline by giving history a more prominent place in the school curriculum alongside literacy goals. Learning history and argumentative writing is key to developing analytical ways of…

Three experienced science teachers at a middle school tell about their first-year journey of adopting STEM pedagogy. STEM did not materialize as planned, but in the end it worked out. Some observations and advice: Transitioning to STEM requires leaving comfort zones. Teachers may need the help of an experienced guide. Many students have been…

A chronicle of the success of a small Catholic school on Long Island, N.Y. in overcoming poverty, race, and language for the 65 male students it has served in grades 5-8 for eight years. The authors posit that the secret of the school's success resides in creating goals, agency and pathways for success in its students, creating a climate of hope…

By the end of fourth grade, African American and Latino students, are two years behind their wealthier, predominantly white peers in reading and math. By eighth grade, they have slipped three years behind, and by 12th grade, the gap is full four years. These are just two examples of the most alarming figures that threaten the educational equity of…

In 2000, the state of Nebraska passed legislation requiring the assessment of student performance on content standards, but its requirements were very different from those of any other state. Nebraska created what has come to be known as STARS (School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System). Under STARS, each of Nebraska's nearly 500…

During the 2002-03 school year, Michael B., Rebecca D., and Aldo V. were eighth-graders at the Regional Gifted Center program at the Beaubien School in the Chicago school system. In February, the Beaubien School held an annual contest for eighth-graders to determine the design for the class T-shirt. Michael was disappointed that his design did not…

A recent report of mathematics results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) highlighted this "major finding": "Public- school students scored lower on average than non-public-school students at both grades 4 and 8." Of course, this finding is nothing new. Indeed, it is part of the common wisdom in the United States that…

In this article, the author shares a decade's worth of experience in developing an approach to teaching math to upper-elementary and middle school students that simultaneously increases basic skills, improves problem solving, raises test scores, and sparks student interest in math. Sections include: (1) Background Of Supermath; (2) Description Of…