The increasing influx into Australia of (im)migrants whose first language is not English has made Australia linguistically more diverse than ever. Despite this, Australia remains a strongly Anglocentric nation, and migrants, in response, tend to abandon their heritage languages (HL) and shift to English relatively quickly. Korean migrants in…

A higher proportion of students are privately educated in Australia, compared with many other nations. In this paper, we tested the assumption that private schools offer better quality education than public schools. We examined differences in student achievement on the National Assessment Programme: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) between public,…

Poor comprehenders are a significant subgroup of poor readers who, due to their ability to read aloud accurately, are often difficult to identify. This study aimed to determine whether assessment using two oral language tasks, mapped onto the two components of the Simple View of Reading, would provide an efficient approach to identification.…

Purpose: Devolution of fiscal and administrative autonomy to public schools is a global phenomenon now. Various models of school autonomy have been adopted both in developing and developed countries. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of devolution of fiscal autonomy to public primary schools through Parent--Teacher Councils (PTCs)…

Teaching children too many words during a lesson reduces retention. The amount of new information a student can successfully rehearse and recall later is called acquisition rate (AR), which has been reliably measured with students in first, third, and fifth grades. The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of assessing AR for sight…

This study explored outcomes related to students' participation in a Houston Symphony (HS) partnership at a targeted HISD elementary school. Students received weekly in-school core enrichment instruction and after-school violin instruction by Houston Symphony Community-Embedded Musicians throughout the 2018-2019 academic year. The study found that…

The amount of information that students can successfully learn and recall at least 1 day later is called an acquisition rate (AR) and is unique to the individual student. The current study extended previous drill rehearsal research with word recognition by (a) using students identified with a learning disability in reading, (b) assessing set sizes…

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of selected academic, demographic, and instructional program related factors on the retention rates of elementary school students. More specifically, this study was concerned with the relationship and predictability of the reading and mathematics variables scores, gender, ethnicity, program…

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the Home Improvement for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program on school performance during the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th grades. The study employed a quasi-experimental, post-hoc design using existing data on children who participated in the HIPPY program as 3-, 4-, or 5-year-olds, including:…

"Transfer Incentives for High-Performing Teachers: Final Results from a Multisite Experiment," examined the impact of the Talent Transfer Initiative (TTI) on both student achievement and teacher retention in 10 school districts across seven states. The initiative gave bonuses to high-performing teachers for them to transfer to and stay…

One way to improve struggling schools' access to effective teachers is to use selective transfer incentives. Such incentives offer bonuses for the highest-performing teachers to move into schools serving the most disadvantaged students. In this report, we provide evidence from a randomized experiment that tested whether such a policy intervention…

One way to improve struggling schools' access to effective teachers is to use selective transfer incentives. Such incentives offer bonuses for the highest-performing teachers to move into schools serving the most disadvantaged students. In this report, we provide evidence from a randomized experiment that tested whether such a policy intervention…

This study examined relationships between specific data on students referred for and placed in the exceptional children's program. The context is a rural North Carolina county and included 206 records of K-6th graders spanning academic years 2007-08, 08-09 and 09-10. The kindergarten entrance ages of students were divided into categories of on…

The transitional period between elementary and middle school remains an area of concern for educators. Many middle schools are plagued with retention issues, core class failures, increased discipline problems, and decreased attendance rates among students during their transitional period. The issues increase for students labeled as at-risk…