Beating the Odds: Exploring the 90/90/90 Phenomenon

This article presents a case study of one high performing high poverty campus serving students of color in South Central Texas. The researchers utilized the criteria for 90/90/90 schools established by Douglas Reeves (2004 Reeves, D. 2004. Accountability in action: A blueprint for learning organizations, Englewood, CA: Advanced Learning Press.  [Google Scholar]). In order to meet these criteria, schools had to have the following characteristics: 90% or more of the student body had to be non-Anglo, 90% or more of the students had to qualify for free or reduced lunch, and achievement testing was mastered at rates of 90% or greater. Researchers conducted an initial examination of every public school within a 16,631 square mile area utilizing these criteria. The results yielded 15 schools that met this standard at least once between the years 2006–2010. Only one school met the criteria in each of these years. Panel interviews, focus groups, site visits, and individual follow up interviews were conducted to glean information on the characteristics of this high performing campus, the results of which are presented herein.     

Maturity-associated variation in sport-specific skills of youth soccer players aged 13 – 15 years

The aim of this study was to estimate the contribution of experience, body size and maturity status to variation in sport-specific skills of adolescent soccer players. The participants were 69 players aged 13.2?–?15.1 years from three clubs that competed in the highest division for their age group. Height and body mass were measured and stage of pubic hair development was assessed at clinical examination. Years of experience in football was obtained at interview. Six football skill tests were administered: ball control with the body, ball control with the head, dribbling with a pass, dribbling speed, shooting accuracy and passing accuracy. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to estimate the relative contributions of age, stage of sexual maturity, height, body mass and years of formal training in soccer to the six skill tests. Age, experience, body size and stage of puberty contributed significantly but in different combinations to the variance in four of the six skill tests: dribbling with a pass (21%; age, stage of maturity), ball control with the head (14%; stage of maturity, height, body height × body mass interaction), ball control with the body (13%; stage of maturity, years of training) and shooting accuracy (8%; stage of maturity, height; borderline significance, P?=?0.06). There were no significant predictors for the tests of dribbling speed and passing accuracy. In conclusion, age, experience, body size and stage of puberty contributed relatively little to variation in performance in four of the six soccer-specific skill tests in adolescent footballers aged 13?–?15 years.     

Book Reviews

Whitman. By Edgar Lee Masters. Charles Scribner's Sons. 342 pp. $3.50.

Curriculum Guides for Teachers of Children from Two to Six Years of Age. By Ruth Andrus and Associates. Reynal and Hitchcock. 299 pp. $2.50.

Education and the Class Struggle. By Zalmen Slesinger. Covici-Friede. 312 pp. $3.00.

Educational Psychology. Edited by Charles E. Skinner. Prentice-Hall, Inc. 754 PP- $3.00.

High School English, Books One, Two, Three. By Henry Seidel Canby, Olive I. Carter, and Helen Louise Miller. The Macmillan Co. 337, 413, and 494 pp. $1.00.

Introduction to Modern Views of Education. By W. A. Saucier. Ginn and Company. 490 pp. $2.00.

Principles of Modern Education. By Frank W. Thomas and Albert R. Lang. Houghton Mifflin Co. 340 pp. $2.25.

Public Discussion and Debate. By A. Craig Baird. Ginn and Co. 400 pp. $2.00. Revised Edition.

Teaching Purposes and Their Achievement. By L. John Nuttall. Charles Scribner's Sons. 290 pp. $1.80.

The Beginning Superintendent. By Frederick E. Bolton, Thomas R. Cole and John H. Jessup. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co. 613 pp. $4.00.

The New Culture: An Organic Philosophy of Education. By A. Gordon Melvin. Illustrated. Reynal and Hitchcock. 296 pp. $3.50.

The Small High School at Work. By R. Emerson Langfitt, Frank W. Cyr, and N. William Newsom. The American Book Company. 660 pp. $2.75.

The Social Functions of Education. By Robert M. Bear. The Macmillan Co. 434 pp. $2.25.

A Woman of Washington. By Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. E. P. Dutton and Company. 282 pp. $2.00.

I Was a Probationer. By Corinne Johnson Kern. E. P. Dutton & Co. 314 pp. $2.50.

The Street of the Fishing Cat. By Jolan Foldes. Farrar and Rinchart. 308 pp. $2.50.

A Southern Treasury of Life and Literature. By Stark Young. Charles Scribner's Sons. 748 pp. $1.48.

Grand Tour. Edited by R. S. Lambert. Illustrated. E. P. Dutton and Co. 167 pp. $2.50.

Monticello and Other Poems. By Lawrence Lee. Charles Scribner's Sons. 92 pp. $2.00.

The Sixteenth Century. By Charles Oman. E. P. Dutton and Co. 247 pp. $3.00.

The Magic World of Music. By Olga Samaroff Stokowski. Illustrated. W. W. Norton. 197 pp. $2.50.

The Concept of Time. By Louise Robinson Heath. The University of Chicago Press. 236 pp. $3.00.

Fifty Million Brothers. A Panorama of Lodges and Clubs by Charles W. Ferguson. Farrar and Rinehart. 389 pp. $3.00.

Mobilizing for Chaos. The Story of the New Propaganda. Yale University Press. 231 pp. $2.50.     

Toward a sociology of participation in adult education programmes

Membership in voluntary associations and participation in adult education programmes have long been recognized by researchers in the fields of adult education and sociology as closely related forms of participatory behaviour. This inquiry realizes the potential of this relationship for the study of participation in adult education programmes through the reformulation of a sociological construct called personal influence. It is argued that personal influence in the form of face‐to‐face contact with primary and secondary influentials is at the heart of recruitment strategies targeted at adults, is often an important component of an adult's decision to participate in formally organized learning activities, and may play a critical role in retention and instruction of the adult learner. Secondary analysis of research on voluntary associations, social movement organizations, and adult education programmes, together with data on two populations of adult learners from ar ongoing large scale study of Adult Basic Education participants, underscores the importance of personal influence for explaining the entire range of participatory action and interaction.     

Sex and Risk: Parental Messages and Associated Safety/Risk Behavior of Adult Children

The importance of both parent–child conversations about sex and general family communication climates has been emphasized in numerous studies. This study compared general family communication via family communication patterns (FCP) to specific parental communication about sex in understanding young adults’ sexual communication/risk (avoidance, threat, and risk behavior). Results suggest that FCP were stronger predictors of adult children’s perceptions of sexual communication as threatening and overall avoidance of sexual communication with their partners compared to the frequency of and overall quality of parent–child conversations about sex. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are also discussed.     

Estimating Causal Effects of Education Interventions Using a Two-Rating Regression Discontinuity Design: Lessons From a Simulation Study and an Application

A valuable extension of the single-rating regression discontinuity design (RDD) is a multiple-rating RDD (MRRDD). To date, four main methods have been used to estimate average treatment effects at the multiple treatment frontiers of an MRRDD: the “surface” method, the “frontier” method, the “binding-score” method, and the “fuzzy instrumental variables” method. This article uses a series of simulations to evaluate the relative performance of each of these four methods under a variety of different data-generating models. Focusing on a two-rating RDD (2RRDD), we compare the methods in terms of their bias, precision, and mean squared error when implemented as they most likely would be in practice—using optimal bandwidth selection. We also apply the lessons learned from the simulations to a real-world example that uses data from a study of an English learner reclassification policy. Overall, this article makes valuable contributions to the literature on MRRDDs in that it makes concrete recommendations for choosing among MRRDD estimation methods, for implementing any chosen method using local linear regression, and for providing accurate statistical inferences.