Honors colleges and programs often evolve in response to a mandate from boards of regents or trustees. Such mandates can lead to new or accelerated change within the institution, change that in many cases is linked to and represented by honors. Such has been the case at Western Kentucky University (WKU), where the honors program has played a key…

Each year teachers and principals in schools across Australia invest much time and effort, and considerable expense, in activities related to communicating student learning progress. However little is known about the effectiveness of these activities, including the extent to which they are valued by stakeholders, whether they are considered to…

Extension faces ever-changing problems, which can be addressed by modifying successful tools rather than inventing new ones. The Master Gardener program has proven its effectiveness, but the cost and time commitment can make it inaccessible to rural, low-income communities, where training in home gardening may address issues of food access and…

Project Partnerships Achieve Literacy (PAL) South Africa was designed to transform teachers' pedagogical practices in literacy instruction in an under-resourced school and, by doing so, improve the reading achievement of foundation phase students (Grades R-3). Sociocultural and situative theories of literacy and learning frame the study. To gauge…

Located in East Oakland, Bridges Academy serves nearly 430 students, the majority of whom are Spanish speakers. Students who are considered socio-economically disadvantaged comprise 98% of the population and English Learners make up 83%. The school also hosts one of Oakland Unified School District's (OUSD) bilingual programs. In 2016, Bridges…

The Community College Pathways initiative consists of two pathways, Statway® and Quantway®, that accelerate post-secondary students' progress through their developmental mathematics sequence and a college-level course for credit. Launched in 2011, the Pathways have been remarkably successful, helping thousands of students achieve success in…

What does it take to change a school's mathematics achievement profile from low to one that is proficient and advanced? Is this transformed achievement profile sustainable? Such is the story presented here, in this three-phase case study of a K-8 urban charter school's mathematics program. The first phase discusses the school's…

Teaching institutions with middle grades-specific teacher preparation programs remain a cornerstone for improving the condition of the nation's middle schools. Yet such programs scarcely exist as the heartbeat of excellence for middle grades schools or for preservice teachers seeking middle grades licensure (Jackson & Davis, 2000). Moreover,…

Giftedness has often been equated with being academically talented or being a high achiever in school. However, there is often concern about the gifted students who could be described as unmotivated and underachieving in one or many academic areas. At the Jones Street School, a school for gifted elementary students, the location of this study,…

The test scores aren't in yet, but by almost every other measure that matters--school climate, instructional strategies, staff satisfaction--the former Shawnee High School isn't the same place it was just a year ago. More than half the teachers are new to the persistently low-performing school. Those who remain say they no longer feel that their…

This article describes the process of replacing a modest Master's level school leader preparation program with an innovative Ed.D. program at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). The new doctoral program is intensive, highly selective, intellectually rigorous, and field-based. The authors provide side-by-side comparisons of the difference…

Life sciences faculty agree that developing scientific literacy is an integral part of undergraduate education and report that they teach these skills. However, few measures of scientific literacy are available to assess students' proficiency in using scientific literacy skills to solve scenarios in and beyond the undergraduate biology classroom.…

This fifth annual update on America's high school dropout crisis shows that, for the first time in history, the nation has crossed the 80 percent high school graduation rate threshold and remains on pace, for the second year in a row, to meet the goal of a 90 percent high school graduation rate by the Class of 2020. This report highlights key…

The National Center on Scaling up Effective Schools (NCSU) is a five-year project working to develop, implement, and test new processes to scale up effective practices in high schools that districts will be able to apply within the context of their own unique goals and circumstances. This report describes the activities and findings of the first…

The core work of the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools consists of four stages: identifying practices of highly effective high schools, designing interventions and transfer of practices, evaluating the intervention's implementation and effects, and evaluating implementation at scale. The purpose of this report is to describe the…