The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program has been preparing students who are first generation. college-going students from subgroups traditionally underrepresented in higher education, and students from lower socioeconomic families for college and careers since 1980. The present study investigated the success of middle school…

The development and implementation of a comprehensive and systemic career development program, The Career Institute, provided the mechanism through which one school community addressed students' career development and college readiness needs while also attending to their academic and personal-social development. The Career Institute consisted of a…

More than 2,300 teachers in 241 schools across 25 states participating in a professional development approach to character education classroom management known as Development Designs 1 and Developmental Designs 2 (DD1 & DD2) were studied throughout the 2008-2009 academic school year. Data from this longitudinal program evaluation indicate that…

Stereotype threat research has demonstrated how presenting situational cues in a testing environment, such as raising the salience of negative stereotypes, can adversely affect test performance (Perry, Steele, & Hilliard, 2003; Steele & Aronson, 1995) and expectancy (Cadinu, Maass, Frigerio, Impagliazzo, & Latinotti, 2003; Stangor,…

The purpose of the present study is to summarize the research to date and report additional findings on a successful alternative model for urban middle level education that is incorporated in NativityMiguel schools. These schools, designed particularly to meet the educational and social developmental needs of young adolescents at risk because of…

The study presented here is the first large scale effort on a national level to examine the relationship between K-8 Elemiddle Schools and 6-8 Middle Schools. From a population of more than 2,000 middle grades schools in 49 public school districts across 26 states, a sample of 542 Elemiddle and 506 Middle Schools was drawn. Both regression and…

This paper reports on a project which investigates the impact of systemic environmental education (EE) programs on student achievement on EE-based integrated tests and standardized tests in math, language arts, and listening. Systemic environmental education programs are defined by curriculum designed to align and integrate subjects around real…

This project examines the effects of Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) models on the achievement of students in Kentucky middle schools. Previous studies exploring the effects of CSR on schools and student achievement have rendered mixed results (Berends, 2000; May & Supovitz, 2006; May, Supovitz, & Perda, 2004; RAND, 2002; Zhang,…

This article examines the implementation and effectiveness of Middle Start, a regional, comprehensive school reform design, focused specifically on middle-grade schools and young adolescents. Utilizing individual school self-study data and employing a quasi-experimental design, factors such as the implementation of interdisciplinary teaming…