Daniel U. Levine

Research on Classroom and School Effectiveness and Its Implications for Improving Big City Schools.

Research on effective teaching has produced useful knowledge regarding instructional techniques dealing with classroom management, teacher-centered direct or explicit instruction, student time-on-task, questioning, and cognitive instruction for low-achieving students. Research on effective schools has produced useful knowledge regarding the characteristics or correlates of schools that are unusually successful in enhancing student achievement. Projects that utilize these research findings in working to improve teacher and school effectiveness have been and are being conducted in many big cities. While encouraging results have been registered in some locations, achievement is still unacceptably low in many cities. Efforts in the future should draw systematically on research dealing with effective classrooms and effective schools.

Assessment of Student Achievement: National and International Perspectives

U.S. students consistently rank low on international assessments of achieve ment, especially in math and science. Are such assessments valid? Or, do national assessments provide a more accurate picture? These writers consid er the questions and their implications.

Guidelines for Change and Innovation in the Secondary School Curriculum

Following the guidelines offered here should help the edu cational innovator avoid past mistakes in attempts at curriculum improvement.

Implementation of Reforms to Improve Comprehension Skills at an Unusually Effective Inner City Intermediate School.

Abstract This article describes reforms that were introduced at a Bronx, New York intermediate school at which large gains in students’ comprehension performance were registered among seventh and eighth graders. One central focus was on introducing the DRP approach, which assesses students’ functional reading level, facilitates teachers’ efforts to match student comprehension levels and the readability of instructional materials, and helps teachers acquire and use comprehension‐improvement strategies. Concurrent reforms included a variety of staff and organizational development efforts, establishment of a mini‐school for at‐risk students, climate improvement activities, and intensive assistance for low achievers. Analysis of the school indicates that it exemplifies selected characteristics of unusually effective schools, namely active/ engaged learning, successful grouping and provision of intensive assistance for low achievers, emphasis on personal development of students, coordination of instruction, av...

The inherent impact of nonpromoted students on reading scores in a big city elementary school

Using data from a single urban elementary school, it is argued that (1) retaining low achieving students affects standardized reading scores in the subsequent year, and (2) that a failure to identify spurious gains can divert the change process in nonproductive or even dysfunctional directions.

Are effective or meritorious schools meretricious

Data on student achievement gain in a large urban school district during the 1984–85 school year were analyzed to identify schools with achievement consistently higher or lower than schools with similar student and school characteristics. Before calculating gain scores, students were grouped with others of the same sex, ethnicity, initial grade level, and initial achievement level. After residuals for students who were above or below similar students were summed and averaged for reading and math at each grade, school-level regression analysis was used to further control for student and school characteristics. Results indicated that schools with reading gains one standard deviation above the mean had average raw scores less than two items higher than the district average on the sixty-item reading test, while schools with math gains this large had raw scores little more than one item higher than the average on the 44-item math test. In addition, examination of data on schools with residual (combined) reading and math gain scores 1.5 or more standard deviations above the average showed that after taking account of student background information and salient school characteristics, only one elementary school among 173 and no secondary school among 71 had unusually high achievement scores. Implications are discussed regarding efforts to identify and reward “meritorious” schools which allegedly have improved achievement more than other similar schools.

Educators Respond to Emerging Social Trends with Multicultural Instruction.

_Heres a summary of what the authors believe are some of the most important issues and trends emerging from Americas cultural pluralism that have significance for classroom _instruction.

The Community School in Historical Perspective

local schools as the logical instrument for fulfilling their communal dreams. Because the school welcomes the children of all the people, it reaches into more homes than any other community institution. Other community institutions, such as the social welfare agencies and the government employment service, have recognized that their goals can best be achieved in close cooperation with the school. Many architects and urban planners are exploring ways to build schools that will help citizens regain a sense of identification with their immediate environment in the face of forces that destroy a feeling of community among anonymous masses.

Are The Black Poor Satisfied With Conditions in Their Neighborhood

Abstract Data collected in 1970 from students attending predominantly black high schools in poverty area sections of four big cities and one small southern city included information on attitudes toward local neighborhood services and conditions. In almost all cases only a minority of respondents in any given city expressed positive views about local housing, education, law enforcement, and other conditions. This finding differs from that in an earlier study utilizing different sampling and data collection methods in Pittsburgh. The study reported here suggests that dissatisfaction with local neighborhood services is fairly widespread among youth and young adults in predominantly black poverty neighborhoods, and should not be minimized by planners or other concerned observers.

The Principalship in Schools That Are Coming Apart.

Bandaids applied to the cracks will not patch up inner-city schools that are coming apart. Nothing short of radical systemic change, initi ated by vigorous, courageous principals, is likely to make a difference. In this article, one of the nations most articulate spokesmen for such change describes approaches that fail and approaches that succeed.