Early education has been a growing priority for the Obama administration, and its competitive funding is spurring innovation in this field around the country. In 2013, early education journalist Paul Nyhan, author of this report, conducted case studies of four competitive grant programs that are triggering changes in early education: "Race to…

A central commitment for professional development schools (PDSs) is to link preservice teacher preparation and in-service teacher professional development with improved learning outcomes for pupils. PDSs are expected to improve student achievement in two primary ways: (1) by enriching and intensifying the learning environment through professional…

In the summer of 2011, the Tennessee Department of Education contracted with the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to provide a four-day training for all evaluators across the state. NIET trained more than 5,000 evaluators intensively in the state model (districts using alternative instruments delivered their own training).…

This paper describes three multigrade school reforms in Latin America: (1) Colombia's "Escuela Nueva", (2) Guatemala's "Nueva Escuela Unitaria", and (3) Chile's MECE-Rural. Each reform endowed primary teachers and students with special training and instructional materials, and encouraged new kinds of instruction in rural…

Treatment integrity (also referred to as "treatment fidelity," "intervention integrity," and "procedural reliability") is an important methodological concerning both research and practice because treatment integrity data are essential to making valid conclusions regarding treatment outcomes. Despite its relationship to validity, treatment…

This paper examines the current academic and policy literatures concerning school evaluation in primary and secondary education within the OECD countries. First, it provides a typology of the existing systems of school evaluation across the OECD. It encompasses the diverse criteria and instruments commonly used to carry out schools evaluation, as…

The concept of treatment integrity cuts across a diversity of fields involved with providing treatments or interventions to individuals. In medical treatments, the concept of "treatment compliance" or "treatment adherence" is an important and problematic issue. In the field of nutrition, the concept of "dietary adherence" is important for…