Freedom School Partners is a six-week summer program that has served the Charlotte, NC area since 2004. The purpose of this report is to present the external evaluation and findings of the six-week program in the summer of 2022. This evaluation is a joint effort between the Centers for Adolescent Literacies (CAL) and the Center for Educational…

While the importance of social-emotional learning for student success is well established, educators and researchers have less knowledge and agreement about which social-emotional skills are most important for students and how these skills distribute across student subgroups. Using a rich longitudinal dataset of 221,840 fourth through seventh…

We estimate the longer-run effects of attending an effective high school (one that improves a combination of test scores, survey measures of socio-emotional development and behaviours in 9th grade) for students who are more versus less "educationally advantaged" (i.e., likely to attain more years of education based on 8th-grade…

The Rural Math Innovation Network (RMIN) is a 4-year project that launched in January 2017 after receiving a $2.9 million Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant from the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and matching funds from the private sector. Virginia Ed Strategies and rural local education agencies (LEAs) in Virginia are implementing…

Teachers and administrators across the United States struggle to maintain safe, civil, and community- and achievement-oriented schools. Disciplinary actions (such as school suspensions) and security measures (such as school resource officers/security guards and security cameras) are some approaches commonly used in schools to try to improve school…

There is a growing consensus amongst policy makers, education professionals, researchers, and the public that a modern education system should develop a 'whole child' providing a balanced set of cognitive, social and emotional skills to face the challenges of an increasingly uncertain and volatile world. Social and emotional development are…

In 2017-2018, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) launched Achieve 180, a program centered upon a comprehensive action plan to increase student achievement at 45 schools, including the 27 schools that received the Texas Education Agency Campus Accountability rating of "Improvement Required" (IR) in 2016-2017 and 18 former IR…

For the past three years, SELF (Sports, Education, Life Skills, and Faith) has focused on improving academic, behavioral, and social skills of students at Key, Revere, and Meyerland middle schools in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Tutorials, an essay contest, character-building lessons, sports, a high-school bridge program, and…

In 2017-2018, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) launched Achieve 180, a program centered upon a comprehensive action plan to increase student achievement at 45 schools, including the 27 schools that received the Texas Education Agency Campus Accountability rating of "Improvement Required" (IR) in 2016-2017 and 18 former IR…

The SELF Foundation afterschool program involved 255 students at Key, Revere, and Meyerland (formerly Johnston) middle schools in tutorials and enrichment activities to support their academic, social, and emotional development. All students at SELF schools were allowed to participate in a character-building essay contest for prizes. Program impact…

The Office of Special Education and Student Services asked the Office of Shared Accountability to evaluate the "Facilitated Communication Pilot." In facilitated communication (FC), people with communication impairments express themselves by typing with the aid of a communication partner, called a facilitator, who provides physical (and…