This report presents the results of an audit by the Office of the Inspector General to determine whether the Department of Education's Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE) provided sufficient oversight of graduation and dropout rates submitted by states in their Consolidated State Performance Reports to ensure the rates were…

This paper examines the integration of Turkish labour migrant children in four countries across Europe in terms of their educational performance. By looking at the PISA 2003 (Programme for International Student Assessment) data pertaining to mathematics achievement of 15-year-olds, it explores the effects of ethnicity, gender and family…

This article examines the impact of using a problem-based curriculum in a heterogeneous classroom environment. (Contains 1 table.)

School systems that track students into certain classes and academic programs based on ability end up worsening disparities between high and low performers, according to a far-ranging report that offers recommendations for improving education across Europe. The study, commissioned by a branch of the European Union (EU), also found that bilingual…

Each edition of the IDRA Newsletter strives to provide many different perspectives on the issues in education topics discussed and to define its significance in the state and national dialogue. This issue focuses on Teaching Quality and includes: (1) Ensuring Teaching Quality in a Civil Rights Context (Bradley Scott); (2) An Unspoken Culture…

This research project focuses on the question: Which effects do teachers' attitudes have on students' academic self-concept and students' competences? The study is informed by the theoretical perspective that competences and individual skills can be improved especially when students and teachers are confident about the possibility of change of…

It is difficult to know whether widening access to schools which provide a more academically oriented general education makes a difference to average educational achievement. We make use of reforms affecting admission to the "high ability" track in Northern Ireland, but not England. The comparison of educational outcomes between Northern…

Background/Context: Considerable controversy surrounds the issue of whether high-stakes statewide accountability programs have led to more equitable educational opportunities for all students. Some researchers suggest that these programs have focused attention on improving the achievement of students of color from low socioeconomic backgrounds.…

Background/Context: Recent sociocultural studies of detracking describe the ways in which notions of ability--local understandings of students' intellectual capacities--are at play in these settings, shaping both the politics and the practice of the reform. This study extends this examination into the classrooms of detracking schools. Purpose:…

Examines the peer effect of tracking students according to ability. Finds that tracking reduces the positive effect peers have on low- and average-ability students, but has no effect on high-ability students. (Contains 18 references.) (PKP)

Although a rich tradition of mainly U.S. and U.K. research focuses on the nature and effects of tracking students within schools, little research has investigated the importance of tracking students in the same or in separate schools. The authors used data from a unique, representative survey in Flanders (Belgium) to examine how students' study…

Background/Context: The educational fate of the children of low-wage immigrants is a salient issue in all the economically developed societies that have received major immigration flows since the 1950s. The article considers the way in which educational systems in the two countries structure the educational experiences and shape the opportunities…

Background/Context: School tracking practices have been documented repeatedly as having negative effects on students' identity development and attainment, particularly for those students placed in lower tracks. Despite this documentation, tracking persists as a normative practice in American high schools, perhaps in part because we have few models…

Background/Context: Given resistance to detracking and the need for strong professional development to support teachers that detracking research documents, it is interesting that little research has focused on teachers' perspectives in the context of professional development. This study addresses this gap in the literature by closely considering…

Improving education outcomes is important for Germany's long-term economic performance and social cohesion. While student achievement is above the OECD average in science and at the OECD average in reading and mathematics according to the 2006 OECD PISA study, weaker students tend to do badly by international comparison and socio-economic and/or…