A Big Kerfuffle over Student Choice in Reading

Nancie Atwell's advocacy of student choice in reading (see article in NY Times) elicited a huge flurry of mis-informed comment. Her video-taped response is on her publisher's page. Nancy Atwell has been one of my heroines ever since I reviewed her book, The Reading Zone, for the June '07 Education Review.

Guide on using RTI for students struggling with math

"Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Response to Intervention (RtI) for Elementary and Middle Schools." This new guide from the What Works Clearinghouse provides eight specific recommendations intended to help teachers, principals, and school administrators use Response to Intervention (RtI) to identify students who need assistance in mathematics, and to address the needs of these students through focused interventions. The guide also describes how to carry out each recommendation, including how to address potential roadblocks in implementing them.
The guide is linked from this page:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/publications/practiceguides/#rti_math_pg

WWC assessment of "I Can Learn Pre-Algebra and Algebra" programs

Will wonders never cease! It's SO rare that any research studies ever meet WWC evidence standards that there usually isn't much to report. Here is what they say about these programs:

"One study of I CAN Learn^®Pre-Algebra and Algebra meets What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards and four studies meet WWC evidence standards with reservations. The five studies included 16,519 eighth-grade students from middle schools in California, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana.³

Based on these five studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for I CAN Learn^®Pre-Algebra and Algebra to be medium to large for math achievement."

Links to the full evaluation report are here:

http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/middle_math/iclprea/

The importance of middle school for college readiness

New research by ACT shows "the level of academic achievement that students attain by eighth grade has a larger impact on their college and career readiness by the time they graduate from high school than anything that happens academically in high school." The lack of college readiness, as assessed by ACT's three-stage assessment, is "alarming":

• Only 20% of tested high school grads were ready for entry-level college courses in the four areas of biology, social science, English composition and college algebra
• 25% of tested students were not prepared for entry-level college courses in any of the four subject areas.
• Less than 20% of tested eighth graders were on target to be college-ready by the time they graduate.

"This report also reveals that students’ academic readiness for college and career can be improved when students develop behaviors in the upper elementary grades and in middle school that are known to contribute to successful academic performance."