Cyberbullying studies

Cyberbullying studies quantify growing problem
As many as one in three, or as few as one in 10, U.S. children are bullied online. About 17% of early adolescents are still victims of in-person bullying, while 64% of cybervictims were not harassed in person.
David-Ferdon, C., & Hertz, M. (2007, Dec.). Youth Violence and Electronic Media: Similar Behaviors, Different Venues? Journal of Adolescent Health, 41(6). Supplement 1, A1-A4, S1-S68.

Student over-confidence study

Self-testing may offset students' overconfidence
Students who are overly confident in their learning abilities may benefit from more self-testing, say two Kent State psychologists studying metacomprehension. "Our research consistently shows that without checking, people often believe they've remembered something correctly when in fact they haven't."
Dunlosky, J., & Rawson, K. (2007). Middle School Students 'Extremely Overconfident' In Their Own Learning. Kent State University. Kent, OH: Kent State University.

International reading literacy study

U.S. ranks 14th among countries in literacy study
U.S. fourth-graders scored about the same on the Progress in International Reading Literacy test as they did in 2001. While the U.S. score, on average, remained above the international average, students in Russia, Hong Kong and Singapore, which were previously outranked by the U.S., now are the top-three scoring countries, Intl. Assn. for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. (2007). An international perspective on fostering reading development. Boston: Boston College.
http://timss.bc.edu/pirls2006/index.html

Parents and teens study

Role that parents play in teens' development
An ongoing study from researchers at the University of Oklahoma is exploring which parenting techniques may result in well-adjusted teens and which may lead to risky teen behaviors. "We can say it over and over that one person can make a difference in the life of a child, but now we can provide it with numbers," said Anne Roberts, the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy's executive director. "We're trying to determine if the protective factors in their lives as kids carry through to help them as adults."
Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy. (2007). Youth asset study. Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.
http://www.oica.org/projects_and_issues/Youth%20Asset%20Study.pdf

Latino ELL study

English fluency rises dramatically in second-generation Hispanics
Although foreign-born Hispanics may struggle to speak English well, 88% of their children are fluent and 94% of subsequent generations speak English fluently while losing most of their Spanish, according to a four-year series of surveys of more than 14,000 adult Hispanics in the U.S.
Pew Hispanic Center. (2007). English Usage Among Hispanics in the United States. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center.
http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=82

Teacher professional development studies

A shift to greater school-level control of teacher professional development may be responsible for "perceptual discrepancies" over who is primarily responsible for organizing teachers’ learning activities, according to a survey of 1400 teachers, principals, and district superintendents. Principals and teachers in larger schools tended to have the greatest sense of school-level influence over professional development; however, in low-income schools, district administrators were perceived to have more authority. Districts were seen as the main source of financial support for teacher professional development, but the findings "also suggest a fair amount of discretionary authority at the school level to select and purchase materials and services specific to their needs."
PBS Teacher Line/Hezel Associates.(2007). The PBS TeacherLine National Survey of Teacher Professional Development. Syracuse, NY: Hezel Associates.
http://www.hezel.com/pbstlsurvey.html

A good research roundup on this topic is available at: http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/articles/2007/10/25/01report-1.h01.html?tmp=612090635

Drug use study

About 80 percent of teenagers in high school have witnessed drug dealing and drug use, and 31 percent of high school students and 9 percent of middle school students see such activity at least once a week, says a report from Columbia University. Twenty-four percent of teenagers surveyed said they view drugs as the primary problem for them and their peers, the report says, while only 11 percent of parents deemed drugs the primary concern. Forty-five percent of parents said that the primary problem for teenagers is social pressure. The annual report includes survey results from more than 1000 young people ages 12 to 17, and from 550 parents.
National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. (2007). The National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse XII: Teens and Parents. New York: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
http://www.casacolumbia.org/absolutenm/articlefiles/380-2007%20Teen%20Survey%20XII.pdf