Beginning in 2002, The Chicago Community Trust embarked on an ambitious grant- making strategy to improve education outcomes primarily in the city of Chicago and Cook County, Illinois. Known as The Education Initiative, this effort focused on three priority grant areas: literacy, professional development, and alternative models of schools. In…

This paper explores the possibilities and challenges games and simulations pose for informal science education. The authors begin with a brief overview of the recent history of games and games research. They then attempt to clarify the distinctions between games and simulations. Next, they examine types of informal learning…

A case study of one low income African American child, Peter Horner, is used to explore how children accumulate various forms of writing capital. Peter's development was tracked over 10 years, from first grade through high school. The construct of time is explored by examining how capital contributes to the construction of "habitus" (Bourdieu,…

The practice of tracking and ability grouping--the division of students into separate tracks, classes, and groups for instruction based on their purported interests and abilities--has long been debated. Evidence from decades of research indicates that tracking magnifies inequality between high and low achievers without raising achievement overall,…

This paper describes the analysis of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program's January 2008 Learning Network Conference (LNC). This study focuses on the methodologies used by the MSP community to generate evidence and seeks to understand topics of interest to the 320 LNC participants. The data set for this…

This paper is a synthesis of case studies of four districts that implemented multifaceted reforms aimed at offering rigorous instruction in mathematics and science for all students as part of a National Science Foundation-supported partnership. A common theory of action aimed for a rigorous curriculum, professional development delivered close to…

Many urban districts have adopted interim assessments in recent years as a supplement to annual testing. Possible purposes for such tests include monitoring and assisting student progress, aligning the curriculum, and practicing for state exams, but little is known about how effectively real systems advance these purposes. The Providence Public…

This qualitative case study reports on processes and outcomes of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded System-Wide Change for All Learners and Educators (SCALE) project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). It addresses a critical challenge in studying systemic reform in complex organizations: the lack of methodologies that…

A case study of one child, Alicia, is used to explore how children's identities as readers are constructed across time as they move thorough school. Attention to time helps us attend to how students draw on ongoing, familial, and historical resources in ways that are both recursive and future-oriented as they construct themselves as readers across…

Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires state education agencies to develop progress and attainment benchmarks for school districts, called annual measurable achievement objectives (AMAOs), for English language learners (ELLs). AMAOs must be based on annual assessments of English proficiency in the domains of listening,…

Federal programs, such as the National Science Foundation's Math and Science Partnership program, are promoting partnerships between K-12 school districts and higher education institutions (K-20 partnerships) in hopes of fostering greater alignment and cooperation among participating institutions and pooling resources to address persistent…

A common theme in policy discussions of teacher quality is that K-12 teacher salaries need to be increased. While raising pay may attract more people to the occupation and improve retention, it is not completely obvious how much pay levels should be increased. One way to determine the pay level needed has been to compare teacher pay to pay levels…

This report of the National Science Foundation-funded SCALE Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Case Studies line of work provides preliminary findings about SCALE activities at the California State University, Northridge (CSUN). This interview-based study (N = 19) includes a descriptive analysis of SCALE activities and an exploratory analysis…

This paper explores the ways in which school leaders are turning to student services staff as local experts in data analysis and use to meet the demands of high-stakes accountability. The authors have been collecting data, as part of a 5-year National Science Foundation-funded study, on how school leaders create data-driven systems to improve…

This study investigates middle school mathematics students' views and interpretations of graphical representations as they use graphs to answer algebraic questions--specifically, questions that require them to extrapolate information from graphs. From data gathered in videotaped interviews, students' verbal responses were analyzed as well as any…