In the United States most teacher compensation issues are decided at the school district level. However, a group of states have chosen to play a role in teacher pay decisions by instituting statewide teacher salary schedules. Education Commission of the States has found that 17 states currently make use of teacher salary schedules. This education…

Purpose: A burgeoning literature investigates the importance of student teaching placements for teacher candidate development, but an important perspective that is largely missing from the existing literature is that of the school districts that host student teachers. In this paper, we describe the student teaching process from the perspective of…

The transition to kindergarten is an important time in the young life of a preschooler. Research has shown that the quality of children's kindergarten transition processes has implications for their future academic and social outcomes, and the level of family engagement in kindergarten. Research further indicates that children living in families…

The Wallace Foundation's Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative is a six-year initiative that The Wallace Foundation launched in 2017 to explore whether and how children benefit when schools and their out-of-school-time programs partner to improve social and emotional learning (SEL), as well as what it takes to do this work.…

A core function of district leadership is providing instructional vision and support for school leaders and teachers. In this article, a Research-Practice Partnership focused on the improvement of elementary mathematics teaching and learning provides the context to study leadership development. We examine the process of one design team within the…

Many employers report difficulty finding qualified candidates for jobs, while millions of American workers are under- or unemployed. At the core of this issue is a startling perception gap involving the skills needed for workplace success. Postsecondary educators -- including those at community colleges -- who prepare workers live on one side of…

The Baby Bridge program was developed to ensure timely and continuous therapy services following neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) discharge. A systematic process for development of the Baby Bridge program included a review of the evidence, integration of theory, and input from NICU health care professionals, early intervention leadership, and…

The purpose this study was to examine the implementation of The Leader in Me, a school-wide positive behavior intervention system (SW-PBIS), and analyze its impact on 5th grade students based on student achievement and office discipline referrals in a rural elementary school in North Central Washington state. The school was in the first year of…

This guidance is designed as a companion resource to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction's (OSPI's) "Reopening Washington Schools 2020: District Planning Guide" (ED606044), issued June 2020. The goal of this companion document is to provide guidance, best practices, resources, and unique considerations for supporting…

Low staff support for schoolwide positive behavior interventions and supports (SWPBIS) is a barrier to implementation and sustainability. In this qualitative study, we identify staff opposed to SWPBIS among staff in 36 schools across 9 districts in western Washington. Nonsupportive staff (n = 44) are compared to supportive staff (n = 1,166) on…

In general, data governance refers to the overall management of the availability, usability, integrity, quality, and security of data. A sound data governance program includes a governing body or council, a definition and allocation of authority, a defined set of procedures, and a plan to execute those procedures. This brief offers best practices…

This is the third paper on the topic of outcomes-based funding written by Dennis Jones for Complete College America. The first paper, "Performance Funding: From Idea to Action" (ED535356), proposed a set of design and implementation principles to help states develop and implement their own outcomes-based funding models. The second paper,…

The recommendations in this brief create a framework for using data effectively to make instructional decisions. The availability of student-level data for educators has pushed forward the movement to strengthen the role of data to guide instruction and improve student learning. While improvements in technology and assessments, as well as recent…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how elementary school principals adjust their leadership practice in response to Washington's new teacher evaluation policy. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a modified content analysis of open-ended survey responses collected from elementary school principals in Washington State.…

In 2014 the Washington state legislature approved career- and college-ready (CCR) requirements for high school graduation that better align with career pathways and with admissions standards at the state's public universities than previous requirements did. The CCR requirements increased the total number of credits needed to graduate, from 20 to…