Learning to read in regular and special schools: a follow up study of students with Down Syndrome

In 2006, a questionnaire was sent to 160 parents of children with Down syndrome in Dutch primary education (special and regular) with a response rate of 76%. Questions were related to the child's gender, age and school history, academic and non-academic skills, IQ, parental educational level, and the extent to which parents worked on academics with their child. In a 2010-follow-up, out of these 121 parents, 115 (95%) filled in a questionnaire on reading and school placement of 16 of these children, IQ was unknown. These children were excluded from the analysis. Controlling for reading scores at time 1 (2006) and the other 2006-variables, ANCOVA's showed that reading scores at time 2 (2010) were higher for children the more years they had been in a regular school between time 1 (t1) and time 2 (t2). This was true for the total group and particularly for the younger children(< 9 years), whether all children or only children still in regular education in 2006 were included. Predicting change scores confirmed this advantage of regular placement, but only in the younger children. Particularly during the first years of primary school, reading development of children with Down syndrome appears to be stimulated by regular school placement

Charter School Quality and Parental Decision Making With School Choice

Charter schools have become a very popular instrument for reforming public schools, because they expand choices, facilitate local innovation, and provide incentives for the regular public schools while remaining under public control. Despite their conceptual appeal, evaluating their performance has been hindered by the selective nature of their student populations. This paper investigates the quality of charter schools in Texas in terms of mathematics and reading achievement and finds that, after an initial start-up period, average school quality in the charter sector is not significantly different from that in regular public schools. Perhaps most important, the parental decision to exit a charter school is much more sensitive to education quality than the decision to exit a regular public school, consistent with the notion that the introduction of charter schools substantially reduces the transactions costs of switching schools. Low income charter school families are, however, less sensitive to school quality than higher income families.

Alternative Learning Environments in Arkansas

One intervention that has been shown to be successful in helping students who have not done well in traditional school settings is alternative learning environments (ALE), or alternative schools (Lehr, Lanners, & Lange, 2003). The U.S. Department of Education (2002) defines an alternative school as “a public elementary/secondary school that addresses the needs of students that typically cannot be met in a regular school, provides nontraditional education, serves as an adjunct to a regular school, or falls outside the categories for regular, special education or vocational education.

The Evaluation of Enhanced Academic Instruction in After-School Programs: Findings After the First Year of Implementation

This report presents one-year implementation and impact findings on two supplemental academic instruction approaches developed for after-school settings -- one for math and one for reading. Compared with regular after-school programming, the supplemental math program had impacts on student SAT 10 test scores and the supplemental reading program did not --although the reading program had some effect on reading fluency

Engaging LGBTQ Issues: It’s Still Complicated

Public school administrators deal with a range of culture war conflicts on a regular basis, and LBGTQ issues are particularly challenging. When I joined my Christian university’s faculty after a long career working as an Evangelical administrator in public schools, I looked forward to shifting from experiencing these conflicts as a public-school administrator to equipping others to handle them. Instead, the challenges have become even more complicated

Rating the Special Masters

After the 85th General Assembly adjourned in April 2005, the Rogers School District, along with 48 other districts, filed a motion to the state Supreme Court to reopen the landmark Lake View school funding case, accusing the legislature of failing to increase school funding for the 2005-06 school year (see Policy Brief 17). The Supreme Court agreed and on June 9, 2005, reappointed former Justices Bradley D. Jesson and David Newbern as Special Masters to assess the plaintiffs’ claims. The Masters issued their report on October 3, 2005, concluding that “the state has not lived up to the promise made by the 84th General Assembly Regular and Extraordinary Sessions of 2003 to make education the state’s first priority.

Hunger Doesn't Take a Vacation: Summer Nutrition Status Report

This report measures the reach of the Summer Nutrition Programs in July 2015, nationally and in each state. This report is based on a variety of metrics and it examines the impact of trends and policies on program participation.First, the report looks at lunch participation in the Summer Nutrition Programs -- the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), among children certified for free and reduced-price meals, combined -- using free and reduced-price participation in NSLP in the prior regular school year as a benchmark against which to compare summer. Because there is broad participation in the regular school year lunch program by low-income students across the states, it is a useful comparison by which to measure how many students could -- and should -- be benefiting from the Summer Nutrition Programs.Second, the report looks at the number of sponsors and sites operating SFSP, as this is an important indicator of access to the program for low-income children in the states.Finally, the report sets an ambitious, but achievable, goal of reaching 40 children with the Summer Nutrition Programs for every 100 participating in school lunch and calculates the number of unserved children and the federal dollars lost in each state that is not meeting this goal

Penentuan Resource Optimal Untuk Pemenuhan Produk Standar Dengan Pendekatan Theory Of Constraint (Studi Kasus di PD Bahtera Prabot Jambi)

PD Bahtera Prabot is a company that produces a variety of furniture, with two types of products, standard products such as school furniture and nonstandard products such as home furniture. The standard products that becomes the object of this study are student chair, elementary school student's desk, junior and senior high school student's desk and the teacher's desk. To fulfill high demand requires high resources. Resources shortage made work stations experiencing bottlenecks in the production system. To meet the shortage of resource, alternative resources outside of regular resources can be used. A mistake in allocating resources will make the throughput, the company's profits, declines. Optimized constraint and alternative approach to compliance is calculated by Theory Of Constraint (TOC). The resources that becomes the constraint in this research is the labor in each work station. Exploitation constraint by setting the number of workers at the work station can no longer be done because it will move the layout and constraint. From 12 of the forecast period, the condition of bottlenecks occur at most stations. The resources that becomes the bottlenecks can not meet the need of the production hour. As a result, there are some products that can not be produced. The results from maximizing throughput, the variable that becomes slack is the student and the teacher's desk chair with a total throughput of Rp 819,148,490. Products that can not be met by regular resource met using alternative resources, such as: hours over time, manpower out sourcing, out sourcing of products, the addition of regular employment and labor combined with the addition of hours over time.Throughput optimal combination obtained from alternative additional manpower and hours over time of Rp 1,056,763,100