Policymakers sometimes view arts education and experiential learning as distractions from the goal of enabling all students to master rigorous content standards. The three school programs described in this article, however, demonstrate that content standards can be integrated into engaging, motivating curriculums based on the arts and authentic…

By the spring of 2000, forty states had begun using student test scores to rate school performance. Twenty states have gone a step further and are attaching explicit monetary rewards or sanctions to a school's test performance. In this paper, the authors focus on accountability programs in which states measure the effectiveness of individual…

The National Science Education Standards recommend that science be taught using inquiry-based approaches. Inspired by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, we examined whether undergraduate students could learn how to conduct field research by teaching elementary school children basic neuroscience concepts in interactive workshops. In an…

Even after acting on the best available information to make a grantmaking decision, a grantmaker should seek to learn from grantees, remain adaptable to new ideas and open to unexpected learning, and willing to admit when grants do not turn out as expected. To this end, Grantmakers for Education's Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking…