WWC report on Early Intervention Reading (EIR) program

Not many studies meet the evidence criteria for WWC. Only one study looking at EIR did and here are excerpts from the summary findings.

"Early Intervention in Reading (EIR)^® is a program designed to provide extra instruction to groups of students at risk of failing to learn to read. The program uses picture books to stress instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, and contextual analysis, along with repeated reading and writing. In grades K, 1, and 2, the program is based on whole-class instruction, with additional small group instruction provided to struggling readers. In grades 3 and 4, the program consists of small group instruction for 20 minutes, four days a week. Teachers are trained for nine months using workshops and an Internet-based professional development program.

Research

One study of EIR^® meets What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards...

Based on this one study, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for EIR^® to be small for alphabetics and comprehension. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations examined the effectiveness of EIR^® in the fluency or general reading achievement domains.

Effectiveness

EIR^® was found to have potentially positive effects on alphabetics and comprehension."

Links to other parts of the report are here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/beginning_reading/eir/index.asp

Lots of $$ and not much gain in reading ability

From the Executive Summary...
"This report presents findings from the third and final year of the Reading First Impact Study (RFIS), a congressionally mandated evaluation of the federal government’s $1.0 billion-per-year initiative to help all children read at or above grade level by the end of third grade. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (PL 107-110, Title I, Part B, Subpart 1) established Reading First (RF) and mandated its evaluation...

• Reading First produced a positive and statistically significant impact on amount of instructional time spent on the five essential components of reading instruction promoted by the program (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension) ingrades one and two.
  

• Reading First produced positive and statistically significant impacts on multiple practices that are promoted by the program, including professional development in scientifically based reading instruction (SBRI), support from full-time reading coaches, amount of reading instruction, and supports available for struggling readers.
  

• Reading First did not produce a statistically significant impact on student reading comprehension test scores in grades one, two or three.
  

• Reading First produced a positive and statistically significant impact on decoding among first grade students tested in one school year (spring 2007)."

Links to the full report, Executive Summary and Appendices are available here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20094038.asp

Newest data on elementary/secondary schools from NCES

The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences has released the report "Public Elementary and Secondary School Student Enrollment and Staff From the Common Core of Data: School Year 2006-07."

This report presents 2006-07 school year information at the national and state level on student enrollment by grade and by race/ethnicity within grade, the numbers of teachers and other education staff, and several student/staff ratios.

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009305

Defining and Debating 'Double Dipping' in Scholarship

I thought this would be a great article to get a conversation started about faculty scholarship since UNLV's increased focus has raised everyone's attention level. This recent article from Inside Higher Education summarized some national level conversations about what constitutes 'double dipping' and how we should count scholarship efforts.
I'm going to go ahead and stick my neck out just to give us a starting/reaction point and I hope you'll send your comments. I think impact is a key measure for faculty scholarship and so I agree with the opinion of one person quoted who says, basically, that it's ok to provide essentially the same content to two different audiences. If in fact, the point of scholarship is to share knowledge and have an impact on the field, doesn't it make sense to disseminate as widely as possible. As long as one is clear in documenting your work that the same presentation was made to different audiences? For example, I work across disciplines in my collaborations so I might publish or present similar information in a venue targeted to librarians and another targeted to educators or counselors. What do you think about the questions raised in this article?

Teacher Retention Strategies: An overview from the northeast region REL

This report from the northeast region REL provides a description of the Compendium of Strategies to Reduce Teacher Turnover in the Northeast and Islands Region, a searchable database of selected profiles of retention strategies implemented in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. The Compendium is not a complete inventory of teacher retention policies and programs in these states but a sample that offers an overview of the range of interventions that have been implemented. The Compendium includes contact information to policy and program experts, allowing questions to be asked relevant to the decisionmakers’ work and context. A guide to searching the database is appended.

Parental involvement in school improvement plans --NREL report

This study of schools requiring improvement (per NCLB) in the Northwest region shows that only 46% of the school improvement plans included the required parental involvement components (as specified in NCLB). Limitations of the study include the fact that only 84% of improvement plans were available to the study authors, and the report does not address actual implementation of parental involvement activities, just specification in the plan. The report authors surveyed the literature to find reports of parental involvement activities that were correlated with improved academic performance.