Background: Race to the Top era teacher evaluation reforms sought to improve teacher effectiveness and, ultimately, student achievement through either accountability or developmental mechanisms (Donaldson, 2021). Quasi-experimental teacher evaluation studies find mixed results in urban and large-scale settings (Dee & Wyckoff, 2015; Steinberg…

Background/Context: Despite increasing school enrollment, significant literacy gaps persist in developing countries, with many children unable to read by age 10. This paper evaluates "M'ap Li Net Ale," a comprehensive intervention aimed at improving early-grade reading skills in Haiti, a context characterized by limited government…

Recent efforts to attract and retain effective educators and to improve teaching practices have focused on reforming evaluation and compensation systems for teachers and principals. In 2006, Congress established the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), which provides grants to support performance-based compensation systems for teachers and principals in…

For over a century, school systems in the U.S. have attempted to improve instructional quality by investing in the education and training of their teachers. Today, over 90% of teachers report participating in some form of professional development (PD). Practitioners have responded to critiques of PD by re-envisioning it in the form of…

Research on social and emotional learning (SEL) has largely focused on classroom interventions and student-­ and classroom­-level outcomes. Few studies have examined whole­-school and district-­level SEL implementations, or how to ensure that SEL programs are implemented effectively and sustained over time. This study examines both process…

"Success for All" (SFA) is one of the best known and thoroughly evaluated school reform models. Further evaluation of the initiative is especially important for two reasons. First, the program model has continued to evolve over time, with a greater emphasis placed on the use of engaging technology in the classroom and on the deployment…

Most school principals believe recess has a positive impact on the development of students' social skills and academic achievement. Research also suggests that physical activity and play during recess may be linked to improvements in both academic and prosocial behaviors (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2010). Recess, however, has been…