The Wisconsin Center for Education Research is home to a new 5-year, $35 million National Science Foundation-funded center, the Systemwide Change for All Learners and Educators (SCALE).

The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), is a new 5-year, $10 million WCER project funded by the National Science Foundation.

WCER's new Coordination, Consultation, and Evaluation Center for Implementing K-3 Behavior and Reading Intervention Models is a five-year, $1.2- million-per-year project that provides technical assistance and consultation to six other research centers.

WCER is home to a new National Science Foundation Center for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL).

The STEP (Secondary Teacher Education Project) Web is an innovative and complex Web site designed to support undergraduate learning.

Norman Webb and colleagues have developed a framework that aims to help the National Science Foundation, its education constituencies, and the education research community to better use data submitted by systemic initiatives to evaluate systemic reform.

Richard Halverson and colleagues have developed a distributed perspective of leadership to study how professional community evolves in urban elementary schools.

The Center provides technical assistance and consultation to six other research centers and is directed by WCER Associate Director Stephen Elliott and Thomas Kratochwill, professors of school psychology.

Read-aloud accommodations on a standardized reading test, when used in addition to those recommended by the teacher, positively and significantly affect test scores for students with disabilities and students without disabilities.

When given more time than usual to complete a mathematics test, most students in a recent study said they felt more comfortable, were more motivated, felt less frustrated, thought they performed better, reported that the test seemed easier, and preferred taking the test under the extended time condition. However, the effect of the "extended time" accommodation was not significant for students without disabilities, or for students with disabilities.

Students with disabilities and without disabilities improved significantly when given standardized tests under accommodated conditions. Students with disabilities benefited more from accommodations on multiple choice questions, and both groups benefited equally on constructed response questions.

Testing accommodations for students with disabilities are generally recommended in packages, rather than independently. And accommodation packages have moderate to large effects on performance assessment scores for most students with disabilities and for some students without disabilities.

Research by Eric Knuth aims to create materials that will enhance teachers' understandings of proof and to help them foster the development of students' competencies in justifying and proving.

Various new projects have been undertaken at WCER including "How After-School Programs Affect Student Experience", The FAST Project: Building Relationships", "Systemic Initiatives: Student Achievement Analysis Study", and others.

With Spencer Foundation funding, Kenneth Zeichner is examining the teaching perspectives and practices of the graduates of Namibia's national teacher education program for basic education, the Basic Education Teachers' Diploma.

Using multimedia technology, Colleen Capper and Richard Halverson are documenting the practices of four public school principals from a variety of communities who have succeeded in increasing the achievement of students of color and low income students in their schools.

The Smaller Learning Communities Program supports the planning, implementation, and expansion of small, safe, and successful learning environments in large public high schools.

With funding from the U.S. Office of Educational Research and Improvement and from the Research Foundation of SUNY-Albany, Mary Louise Gomez and Gloria Ladson-Billings are helping teachers learn more about diversity and to make better use of diversity (their students', the parents', and the community's) in the classroom to enhance learning.

David Williamson Shaffer is studying professions (particularly architecture, medicine, conflict resolution, and journalism) as models for technology-enhanced education in traditional disciplines like math, science, and social studies.

Norman Webb and colleagues are helping better align the Wisconsin curriculum standards and state assessments in Grades 4 and 8, in four content areas—language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science.

WCER's William Clune and Eric Osthoff coordinate and conduct the Milwaukee portion of this three-city study, which includes school-level data collection, data coding, and preliminary data analysis.

With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, and Pennsylvania State University, Alberto Cabrera is documenting the impact of GEAR UP-supported activities in preparing economically disadvantaged 8th graders for college.

Jeffrey Lewis is documenting the development and impact of an after-school program for elementary school students in two California school districts.

The accountability system of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) holds each school accountable through a system of school and district report cards that emphasize performance on standards-based student assessments (e.g., percent of students reaching the proficient or advanced level in various academic subjects).

WCER researchers are studying ways in which the many components of the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) are working together to support student attainment of high academic standards. Researchers William Clune, Norman Webb and colleagues offer conclusions and recommendations from the analyses of policy, information systems, and alignment.

UW-Madison education professor Sharon Derry and colleagues are studying middle grade students' transition from arithmetic into algebraic reasoning. They seek to develop and evaluate proper educational approaches to improve the learning and teaching of increasingly complex mathematics.

UW-Madison Education Professor Sharon Derry is developing and testing the STEP (Secondary Teacher Education Project) Web, www.wcer.wisc.edu/STEP, an innovative and sophisticated distance learning environment on the Web for supporting scientific instruction for teacher education.

The improvement of algebra education must be grounded in sound theory of how students develop algebraic reasoning and acquire domain knowledge and skills; and in the beliefs and existing practices of teachers.

A new $1.2 million research center based at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research is beginning the work of coordinating the research on issues relating to reading and behavior problems in students in grades kindergarten through 3.

Professor Lynn McDonald developed the Families and Schools Together (FAST) program to build partnerships between schools and parents, along with professionals from the community.

The Learning Through Technology (LT2) Web site offers resources for science, mathematics, engineering and technology instructors. The site features information designed to provide knowledge on technologies in use and how this technology can impact and enhance student learning.

Although classroom discourse is the principal medium of learning in school, teachers rarely pay attention to how they structure it. Appropriately, they focus mainly on what they are teaching and what their students are learning; at best, awareness of classroom discourse itself is subsidiary.

When the Cincinnati Public Schools implemented a new teacher evaluation system in the 2000-2001 school year it asked WCER researchers Tony Milanowski and colleagues to conduct a formative evaluation.

The quality of care infants receive is of special interest because experiences in the first year or two of a child's life are particularly formative: they establish the fundamentals of language and cognitive functioning. Verbal and cognitive stimulation by a child's caregivers in the first 2 years may have a pronounced effect on later language and cognitive competence.

UW-Madison education professor Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell and graduate student Simone Devore wanted to know what factors contribute to the inclusion of children with disabilities in center-based and home-based child care programs.