Caregivers play an integral role in a child's academic development, including their literacy development (Compton-Lilly et al., 2019; Cunningham, 2021; Edwards, 2004; Edwards, 2016; Smith, 2020; Volk, 2021). One way caregivers have supported their children's literacy development is by assisting them with school activities at home. While some…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) are an essential avenue for high-quality change and work. Maintaining unity among groups with differing opinions is challenging. This mixed-methods study aimed to assess elementary teachers' current perceptions of PLCs to determine their effectiveness by answering four research questions: What are the…

The problem addressed in this study is that the low reading proficiency levels of marginalized elementary students significantly affect their future academic achievement and life outcomes. The purpose of this quantitative comparative study was to investigate the differences in the reading proficiency levels of marginalized Grade 3-5 students in a…

This evaluation report describes a central professional learning strategy that the California NGSS Early Implementers Initiative used to help teachers effectively transition to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The Initiative's approach to lesson study, called a Teaching Learning Collaborative (TLC), brings together teams of teachers…

Teachers have an important influence on pupils' academic progress, yet the quality of teaching varies widely. Policymakers, school leaders, and teacher educators therefore face the challenge of designing and commissioning professional development (PD) to help all their teachers become as effective as the best teachers. In the last two decades, a…

The NGSS Early Implementers Initiative was created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Many educational initiatives are funded for only a couple of years. This unique initiative spanned an extraordinary six…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) advocate an integrated model of science instruction for middle schools in which the science disciplines are connected rather than separate. This model, used by other countries that are consistently successful in science, has several key benefits, including enhanced student learning and better…

Establishing adult career pathways is challenging, complex work. In Minnesota, a new professional development initiative provides ABE managers with a facilitated, supported, year-long cohort as they work to create or strengthen a career pathway program in collaboration with WIOA partners in their localities. In this article, the rationale, design,…

The National Council on Teacher Quality's (NCTQ's) 2016 "Landscape in Teacher Preparation" has examined 875 traditional undergraduate programs that prepare elementary school teachers, finding widely variable levels of quality. Some programs prepare teachers whom parents would love to see in front of their child's classroom. Too many…

Study abroad programs offer a unique opportunity for students to immerse themselves within different cultural backgrounds as they continue to further their education. By experiencing this first-hand, in-service and pre-service educators are better prepared to address diversity issues within their classrooms. The "Handbook of Research on…

Experts Bernhardt and Hébert's latest book demonstrates strategies to ensure your entire staff works together to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate a schoolwide prevention system with integrity and fidelity. Each step in this important resource is designed to help administrators, teachers, and other educators improve the learning of every…

Many schools identified by states as needing improvement through their Elementary and Secondary Education Act waivers have selected Response to Intervention (RTI), a three-tiered instruction program sometimes referred to as tiered levels of instruction, as one of their main strategies for improving school performance and closing achievement gaps.…

Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest assisted Milwaukee Public Schools in developing a fidelity monitoring system for measuring schools' progress in implementing Response to Intervention (RTI). The study examined the ratings produced by that system to determine the system's reliability, schools' progress in implementing RTI, and whether ratings…

This study concerns how intra-organizational networks affect the implementation of policies and practices in organizations. In particular, we attend to the role of the informal subgroup or clique in cultivating and distributing locally adapted and integrated knowledge, or know-how. We develop two hypotheses based on the importance of…

This paper reports on an interpretive study in which 25 elementary principals were asked about their assessment knowledge, the use of large-scale assessments in their schools, and principals' perceptions on their roles with respect to large-scale assessments. Principals in this study suggested that the current context of large-scale assessment and…