Most students with disabilities participate in state assessments with or without accommodations [based on each student's Individualized Education Program (IEP)]. A small number of students with the most severe or profound intellectual disabilities participate in an alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS). Until…

In honor of the 2014 International Year of Crystallography, the first Wisconsin Crystal Growing Competition was successfully organized and conducted. High school students from 26 schools across the state competed for prizes by growing large crystals of CuSO[subscript4]·5(H[subscript2]O). This paper describes how the event was planned and carried…

Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAPs) have been identified as an intervention toward improving physical activity opportunities for youth throughout the school day. One of the five elements of a CSPAP is afterschool programming. This paper translates the varied research about youth engagement in physical activity into a…

There's an emerging trend in the national college completion movement. A group of small but powerful Student Success Centers is creating statewide impact in states traditionally devoid of a strong centralized tradition of community college governance. Growing directly out of a decade of hard work to dramatically boost student completion rates in…

Parallel efforts in principal evaluation and educator preparation are prompting new conversations among states, higher education programs, private foundations, and professional associations about strengthening school leadership development pipelines. A strong school principal pipeline has many elements, but each element supports the evaluation and…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for K-12 English language arts/literacy and mathematics, released in 2010, have been adopted by 49 states and territories; the District of Columbia; and the U.S. Department of Defense schools, which serve the children of U.S. service members around the world. The widespread adoption of the CCSS is a major…

States are required by federal law to create annual report cards for the public with key data about how their students and schools are doing. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) decided to find out if these report cards are easily found and understood. In summer 2016, DQC took the following steps: (1) reviewed 51 report cards (all 50 states and the…

The topic of special education can be confusing and frightening for parents who suspect their child has a disability or has difficulty learning. Parents in this situation want to know how to get help for their child. This guide is intended as a reference for people who have questions about special education for a child. It summarizes the basic…

Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (division) has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges," commonly known as the "Condition Report." The intent of this report is to provide clear, objective data about Iowa's community…

In this increasingly interconnected world, the ability to communicate clearly and effectively with each other defines success in relationships, in the workforce and in one's personal pursuits. (AFMLTA More Leaps, 2012). There is an impetus in education, therefore, to improve the quality of language teaching and learning programs in schools and to…

Some Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grantees are experimenting with the design and operation of teacher leader (TL) programs as part of their performance-based compensation systems (PBCS). Much of the impetus for this is the U.S Department of Education TIF 4 requirement that grantees' PBCS should provide for "additional responsibilities and…

This article provides lessons learned about community building and child assessment training from an external evaluation of an Arizona statewide initiative for early childhood programs.

Evidence-based innovations developed locally can have a powerful and broad impact on a state's student success agenda, but only when a system is in place for accelerating the diffusion of innovation across institutional lines. State leadership is key to bringing effective practices to scale. That is what is happening in North Carolina, Texas, and…

With increasingly diverse student populations, educational equity is a bigger challenge than ever for public schools across the United States. While federal government, states, and school districts work to identify and address the root causes of equity gaps, efforts are often hampered by a limited body of research-based strategies and approaches…

Right now, many states and districts are struggling to fill teaching positions. Between 2009 and 2015, enrollment in teacher preparation programs fell by 35% and the number of program completers fell by 18%, meaning fewer teachers are entering the field. Teacher attrition, including all teachers who leave the profession for any reason, is just…