Reading, Writing, \u27 Rithmetic and Relationships: Advisories, the Fourth R in Enhancing Student Achievement?

Urban communities are challenged by increasing numbers of young people dropping out of school. The small school movement\u27s focus on personalization represents a response to social, economic, and political forces that require new approaches to educating students. Small size may nurture relationships; however, it cannot guarantee academic achievement. This exploratory quantitative study examined the predictive capacity for AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) Elective (advisory) students\u27 sense of membership, coupled with academic press, to influence academic achievement. A survey and scores on English Language Arts and Math assessments were used to determine what impact the two variables had on students\u27 achievement. Findings indicated minimal evidence of the predictive capacity for AVID Elective (advisory) students\u27 sense of membership to impact students\u27 academic achievement. There was evidence of the predictive capacity for AVID Elective (advisory) students\u27 sense of academic press to impact academic achievement. A significant difference was found between Math benchmark scores for stratified matched samples of AVID students versus Non-AVID. AVID students scored higher on Math assessments than did Non-AVID students. There was not a significant difference between English Language Arts assessment scores for stratified matched samples of AVID versus Non-AVID students. Among stratified matched samples of AVID students (large and small schools) and Non-AVID students (large and small schools), AVID students jn large schools scored the highest on Math benchmarks. AVID students in small schools scored the highest in English Language Arts among the four groups. The author proposes a new model for an ethic of care for urban students where social interactions between students and teachers, and among groups of students engender an ethos where academic achievement is possible

Meta-analysis of shared genetic architecture across ten pediatric autoimmune diseases

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have identified hundreds of susceptibility genes, including shared associations across clinically distinct autoimmune diseases. We performed an inverse χ(2) meta-analysis across ten pediatric-age-of-onset autoimmune diseases (pAIDs) in a case-control study including more than 6,035 cases and 10,718 shared population-based controls. We identified 27 genome-wide significant loci associated with one or more pAIDs, mapping to in silico-replicated autoimmune-associated genes (including IL2RA) and new candidate loci with established immunoregulatory functions such as ADGRL2, TENM3, ANKRD30A, ADCY7 and CD40LG. The pAID-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were functionally enriched for deoxyribonuclease (DNase)-hypersensitivity sites, expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), microRNA (miRNA)-binding sites and coding variants. We also identified biologically correlated, pAID-associated candidate gene sets on the basis of immune cell expression profiling and found evidence of genetic sharing. Network and protein-interaction analyses demonstrated converging roles for the signaling pathways of type 1, 2 and 17 helper T cells (TH1, TH2 and TH17), JAK-STAT, interferon and interleukin in multiple autoimmune diseases

Reading, Writing, \u27 Rithmetic and Relationships: Advisories, the Fourth R in Enhancing Student Achievement?

Urban communities are challenged by increasing numbers of young people dropping out of school. The small school movement\u27s focus on personalization represents a response to social, economic, and political forces that require new approaches to educating students. Small size may nurture relationships; however, it cannot guarantee academic achievement. This exploratory quantitative study examined the predictive capacity for AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) Elective (advisory) students\u27 sense of membership, coupled with academic press, to influence academic achievement. A survey and scores on English Language Arts and Math assessments were used to determine what impact the two variables had on students\u27 achievement. Findings indicated minimal evidence of the predictive capacity for AVID Elective (advisory) students\u27 sense of membership to impact students\u27 academic achievement. There was evidence of the predictive capacity for AVID Elective (advisory) students\u27 sense of academic press to impact academic achievement. A significant difference was found between Math benchmark scores for stratified matched samples of AVID students versus Non-AVID. AVID students scored higher on Math assessments than did Non-AVID students. There was not a significant difference between English Language Arts assessment scores for stratified matched samples of AVID versus Non-AVID students. Among stratified matched samples of AVID students (large and small schools) and Non-AVID students (large and small schools), AVID students jn large schools scored the highest on Math benchmarks. AVID students in small schools scored the highest in English Language Arts among the four groups. The author proposes a new model for an ethic of care for urban students where social interactions between students and teachers, and among groups of students engender an ethos where academic achievement is possible