Quantitative literacy is an essential twenty-first century skill that universities are heavily invested in teaching to students. The social sciences play an important role in these efforts because they attract students who might otherwise avoid data and mathematically oriented courses and because they ground quantitative reasoning in political and…

As a result of the U.S. Department of Education's near one-billion-dollar investment in the "Teaching American History" ("TAH") grant program since 2001, almost 1,200 projects have taken place in school districts around the country with the important aim of improving the teaching of American history in K-12 classrooms. The…

The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) supports projects that are designed to reform teacher and principal compensation. Initially, the Department of Education (the Department) made two rounds of awards, in 2006 and 2007, to a total of 34 grantees. The specific goals of TIF were to reward teachers and principals for improving student achievement,…

This action guide is intended to assist in the reading of and reflection upon "Learning by Doing: A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work, Second Edition" by Richard DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Richard Eaker, and Thomas Many. The guide can be used by an individual, a small group, or an entire faculty to identify key points,…

During the 2009-10 academic year, 1,444 8th grade students in the Canton City, Plain and Marlington Local School Districts (hereafter called Stark students) took the EXPLORE Test as part of a pilot project, "Ready to Go: Increasing Eighth Grade Readiness," sponsored by the Stark Education Partnership with funding from the Ohio College…

The major purpose of this descriptive report is to provide an overview of the structure, capacity, and roles of educational service agencies (ESAs) across five states--Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin--in the Great Lakes region, within the context of the broader statewide systems of support for educational improvement and progress.…

This two-part report comprises a description of an urban school improvement project in Michigan and the final evaluation report of the project. The Project for Secondary School Improvement was a 3-year program designed to assist secondary schools in 19 Michigan districts in implementing improvement models based on the research on effective schools…

This document provides a compilation of information presented at the "Cause for Applause" conference sponsored by the Urban Education Network of the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) and the Chicago (Illinois) public schools. The first section, "Strategies for Urban School Improvement," describes programs…

The school review model is used by the Metropolitan Separate School Board of Toronto (Ontario) to determine, in a positive and supportive manner, the extent to which policies, procedures, and practices have been implemented in the local schools to achieve the Board's goals and objectives. The following areas are reviewed: (1) the Catholic school…

The purpose of this project was to implement the principles of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) in the "Fort McMurray (Alberta, Canada) Roman Catholic Separate School District (RCSSD) No. 32" and to collect data related to student achievement, responsibility, and attitudes in mathematics to help assess the effects of the implementation.…

The College Science Instrumentation Program (CSIP) was developed to provide seed money matching funds for the acquisition of laboratory instrumentation in order to improve the quality of undergraduate science/engineering education. This report describes the impact of the program and the program characteristics during the years 1985-87. An…

During the past decade, the federal government, alongside the efforts of state, local, and private-sector groups, has promoted initiatives in the search for ways to improve the teaching of mathematics and science in the nation's schools. This report summarizes a 2-year study of the largest of such federal initiatives, the Dwight D. Eisenhower…

This paper focuses on the use of Gardner's (1985) Multiple Intelligence Theory (MIT) in the restructuring of the curriculum at elementary schools in Pawlet, Vermont. It discusses the state of education in Vermont, the need to restructure and improve assessment at the Pawlet schools, and the adoption of MIT to further this goal. The bulk of the…

This report responds to some of the key questions raised by educators and legislators about ESL practices, programs and support services across the three California postsecondary systems: the California Community Colleges (CCC), the California State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC). While this report was produced to address…

College 1, sponsored by the Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges (CASC) in 1978 and 1979, is described as a short-term, national experimental college that brings faculty and students from small U.S. liberal arts colleges together in a temporary educational system. During this four-week summer program, new teaching methods, new course…