SREB Publications matching your search

Description: This report, part of the Challenge to Lead education goals series, documents the stall of progress in middle grades reading and math achievement. It analyzes results on state assessments and the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) and indicates steps that will help states regain progress in achievement. It also lays out five specific strategies states can use to keep middle grades students on the path to success — from building a better- aligned sequence of math courses, to increasing professional development for middle grades teachers.
Publication #: 09E04
Details: 42 pages; 2009; $5
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Author: Sondra Cooney and Barbara Moore
Description: Technical Assistance Visits help school leaders and teachers identify changes needed to improve student achievement in the middle grades and to implement the comprehensive improvement framework. This guide provides detailed information to help schools plan effective Technical Assistance Visits. It describes team members' roles and includes forms, checklists, and sample agendas and correspondence.
Publication #: 02V05
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Author: Sondra Cooney and Gene Bottoms
Description: This research brief is based on an SREB study of nearly 3,100 students from 44 middle grades schools and 38 high schools. It shows that ninth-graders in higher-level courses have a lower failure rate than students with similar characteristics in lower-level courses. The report offers specific actions that schools can take to improve student achievement.
Publication #: 02v08
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Description: Effective organizational strategies are vital when a school is getting ready for a Technical Assistance Visit (TAV). This guide provides sites with step-by-step guidelines for organizing three-day visits. Sites learn how to prepare students, teachers and administrators for successful visits that will lead to school improvement.
Publication #: 03V60-R09
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Author: Rafael Heller, Sarah Calderon and Elliott Medrich of MPR Associa
Description: This literature review surveys contemporary scholarship on academic achievement in the middle grades to assess the state of middle grades education and determine what led to reform.
Publication #: 02V47
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Author: Gene Bottoms, Sondra Cooney and Kathleen Carpenter
Description: This publication describes six steps that states can take immediately to strengthen middle grades education.

1. Get the mission right. Set out to prepare students for challenging work in high school.
2. Define what students need to know and be able to do to be ready for high school.
3. Set high but reasonable standards for student performance.
4. Provide lagging students with extra time and extra help.
5. Get more good principals, in part by changing the focus of existing programs for preparing principals.
6. Get more good teachers, in part by changing licensure rules to require all middle grades teachers to have a solid grounding in the subjects they will teach.

Publication #: 03V02
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Author: Sondra Cooney and Gene Bottoms
Description: In 1997 SREB launched a comprehensive middle grades improvement effort, Making Middle Grades Work. This research report examines the design and implementation of this comprehensive improvement effort in 52 middle grades schools in 16 states. The study addresses four basic questions: 1) Is student achievement higher for eighth-graders in the network than for other eighth-graders? 2) Why do schools with similar demographics perform differently? 3) Why is achievement higher for students in schools that have implemented the design more fully? 4) What can states, districts and schools do to improve middle grades achievement? The report includes a summary of findings and recommendations for states, districts and schools.
Publication #: 03V64
Details: $5; $2.50 each for 10 or more
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Author: Sondra Cooney and Gene Bottoms
Description: In 1997 SREB launched Making Middle Grades Work, a comprehensive effort to improve the middle grades. This research brief summarizes the results of a research study of 52 middle grades schools in 16 states. The study revealed improvement in both reading and mathematics. This report also recommends actions that states, districts and schools can take to improve achievement.
Publication #: 03V65
Details: $1.50
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Author: Sondra Cooney
Description: Are middle grades teachers prepared to teach the depth of content necessary to prepare students for high school in the 21st century? This report addresses that question and includes a rating instrument that states and districts can use to gauge their commitment to having a well-qualified teacher in every middle grades classroom.
Publication #: 00V39
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Author: Sondra Cooney
Description: Paints a picture of middle grades schools that are not preparing students for the challenges that lie ahead in high school courses. The educational gains that are made in elementary school stall when children enter the middle grades, where they are not being held to high standards or challenged intellectually, according to the report.
Publication #: 98E02
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Author: Sondra Cooney
Description: This report outlines some strategies that have been effective and offers suggestions for how states and schools can take students to the next level and ease their transition into more challenging courses in high school.
Publication #: 98E05
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Author: Sondra Cooney
Description: This report addresses the need for states to examine closely their requirements for teacher certification and to review the educational backgrounds of middle grades teachers. The report includes a list of recommended actions that states can take to improve teaching in the middle grades.
Publication #: 98E13
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Author: Sondra Cooney
Description: This report helps states take control of efforts to improve the middle grades and gives them several suggestions for how to achieve success. The report reviews the predicament that exists in the middle grades and advises states of their responsibilities in spearheading changes in middle grades education.
Publication #: 99E19
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Author: Sondra Cooney
Description: The middle grades have long been identified as the weak link in education. Making Middle Grades Work seeks to accelerate academic achievement by changing what students are taught; how they are taught; when they are taught certain subjects; how teachers relate to students, other teachers and parents; and how teachers receive support. This guide explains how teachers, school and district leaders, and the community can work together to design improvement strategies.
Publication #: 01V53
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Author: Joan Lord
Description: This report, a part of the Challenge to Lead education goals series, documents SREB states' progress in getting middle grades students ready for high school. The analyses are based on scores and standards of state achievement tests and on results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The report also describes promising practices for preparing middle grades students for high school, based on technology applications that have been implemented in SREB states and on the work of SREB's Making Middle Grades Work.
Publication #: 04E05
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Author: Kathleen Carpenter and Gene Bottoms
Description: Many middle grades mathematics teachers do not have the content expertise necessary to prepare their students for rigorous mathematics courses in high school. This publication outlines the content, process and instructional competencies needed by these teachers. Approved by mathematics content experts in all 16 SREB state education agencies, it can be used by schools and districts to design professional development for middle grades mathematics teachers and help them meet the 'highly qualified' designation required by the No Child Left Behind Act.
Publication #: 04V49
Details: $2; $1 each for 10 or more
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Description: The purpose of the Technical Review Visit is to review the progress a site has made in implementing the MMGW framework for school improvement. Specifically, this follow-up visit assesses how the school has addressed the challenges identified during the Technical Assistance Visit and outlined in the Technical Assistance Visit report. This guide gives schools a step-by-step process to prepare for the Technical Review Visit and includes forms, checklists and sample agendas. (Note: Available online only.)
Publication #: 04V51
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Author: Renee Murray and Gene Bottoms
Description: This research brief addresses low reading achievement among rural middle grades students, particularly in the Southern states. On a 2003 NAEP-referenced reading exam taken by more than 3,000 eighth-graders at Making Middle Grades Work network sites, 29 percent scored below the Basic level. The report offers strategies for addressing the problem, provides data that will help teachers and administrators assess the reading achievement of students, and provides a foundation for raising the literacy expectations of all students in all subject areas. It shows that students who take an advanced English curriculum and who have intensive literacy experiences in a culture of higher expectations achieve higher reading scores.
Publication #: 05V69
Details: $1
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Author: Sondra Cooney and Beth Lasater
Description: The Research Triangle Institute prepared this report for SREB's Making Middle Grades Work initiative. It compared 28 high- and low-implementation schools and found that students at middle grades schools that more fully implement the MMGW design have higher student achievement than those at schools that do not fully implement the design.
Publication #: 06V03
Details: $2; $1 each for 10 or more
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Description: Making Middle Grades Work (MMGW) expects schools to show continuous progress in implementing classroom practices and improving student achievement. This document helps verify improvement in student achievement and determine if 85 percent of all student groups are meeting the MMGW Goals in reading, mathematics and science.
Publication #: 06V14
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Description: This brochure describes the Making Middle Grades Work (MMGW) enhanced design for school improvement, including the updated MMGW framework of Goals and Key Practices, recommended core curriculum and Key Conditions. Those interested in joining the MMGW network can learn what states, network sites and member states agree to do as part of MMGW.
Publication #: 06V15-R08
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Description: SREB states were among the first in the nation to set comprehensive state standards for K-12 schools. But setting standards is only part of the job. Getting the standards right and keeping them right may be the most important task facing public education today. This report recommends the use of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) as a yardstick for state standards and includes state profiles of student performance on standards and NAEP assessments for each SREB state.
Publication #: 06E19
Details: $5
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Author: Gene Bottoms, Sondra Cooney and Allison Timberlake
Description: In this report, SREB compared schools in the MMGW initiative that have more fully implemented the MMGW research-based design with others that have been defined as low-implementation schools. The report shows clear differences in the achievement levels and academic success of these two groups of schools. The report also shows that dynamic, sustainable middle grades reform is far more likely to occur when district leaders, principal leaders and teacher leaders are all committed to the same improvement goals and means of achieving them.
Publication #: 07V10
Details: $7.50; $5 each for 10 or more
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Author: Gene Bottoms and Allison Timberlake
Description: Students who successfully complete grade nine are substantially more likely to graduate from high school than are students who fail the freshman year. However, many middle grades students are not academically prepared for ninth grade. This report addresses five questions that can help school leaders ensure that middle grades students know the courses they need to take before ninth grade and that ninth-graders are prepared for the rigor of high school curricula.
Publication #: 07V15w
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Author: Barbara Moore
Description: SREB's Making Middle Grades Work initiative aims to increase the percentages of eighth-graders who perform at the proficient level in core academic subjects and who leave eighth grade ready for college-preparatory work in high school. Technical Assistance Visits help school leaders and teachers identify changes needed to improve student achievement in the middle grades. This guide is designed to help team members conduct successful, productive Technical Assistance Visits.
Publication #: 08V19w
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Description: This guide is designed to explain the 2008 Middle Grades Assessment (MGA). Included in the first section are details about the purpose and composition of the MGA, its administration and distribution of the results. The second section of this guide details the composition of the MGA report. The type of data displayed in the report is explained and the report is described in detail. Finally, the guide describes a series of questions designed to assist schools in interpreting the 2008 MGA report. Schools can use the companion workbook to this guide to respond to these questions.
Publication #: 08V10w
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Description: Designed for use in conjunction with A Guide for Using the Middle Grades Assessment Report to More Deeply Implement School Reform, this workbook enables schools to see where they stand in their efforts to achieve continuous school improvement. The questions are largely derived from the student and teacher survey sections of the 2008 Middle Grades Assessment.
Publication #: 08V11w
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Author: Gene Bottoms and Allison Timberlake
Description: In an era of rising college and workplace requirements, completing a quality high school education is more important than ever before. But students cannot be expected to excel in rigorous high school studies if they do not receive adequate preparation in the middle grades. Using the results from the 2004 and 2006 Middle Grades Assessments, this report compares school and classroom practices of improving and non-improving middle grades schools and identifies actions schools can take to prepare more students for success in high school and beyond.
Publication #: 08V22
Details: $7.50; $5 each for 10 or more
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