Jonathan Plucker

The Center brings together experts from four research institutions and three SEAs to study high-priority issues in the area of advanced and accelerated education.

Many policymakers, educators, and parents want assurance that the nation's gifted and talented students receive instruction that is sufficiently challenging and that will allow these students to reach their full potential. Recent studies of gifted and talented programs indicate that the extent and quality of services available to gifted students varies from state to state, district to district, and even from school to school within school districts. Overall, the field knows little about how ...

To address the poor science achievement of high school students and to help reduce the achievement gap, high school science teachers need interventions that improve student learning in science. Unfortunately, there are few science interventions currently available to high school science teachers that have rigorous, scientifically based evidence of their impact on student's science achievement. Therefore, this study seeks to assess the efficacy of the Computer Assisted Learning Method (CALM),...

At the time of this study, full-day kindergarten was used increasingly as a strategy to address achievement gaps and promote early learning and school readiness. In this project, the researchers compared the academic results of full-day kindergarten with those of half-day kindergarten. Through this comparison, the researchers expected the results to show whether providing full-day kindergarten in two high-poverty schools improved academic performance and attendance rates and reduced special ...