The innovations in this volume instill a sense of optimism about how special education professionals might improve outcomes for students with disabilities. Although many interventions illustrate scientific progress toward an evidence-based profession, many special educators may find it challenging to discriminate between scientifically validated…

With the onset and implementation of No Child Left Behind legislation almost two decades ago, coupled with declining performance by U.S. students compared with other developed countries, public education in our country has been under constant scrutiny from all fronts and continues to be there today. Much of the recent emphasis in educational…

Findings from research syntheses of adult learning and in-service training studies identified the importance of professional development as a factor influencing practitioner use of recommended and evidence-based intervention practices. These relationships were used to test the hypothesis that practice-specific evidence-based capacity-building…

U.S. federal special education policies require state departments of education to collect data to measure progress in attaining state performance plan goals, with Indicators 13 and 14 measuring the Individualized Education Program (IEP) transition process and post-high school student outcomes. Research suggests that higher transition indicator…

There's no doubt that research bearing directly on classroom practice is crucial. In this article Daniel Willingham maintains that it's useful for educators also to know the basic science around children's cognition, emotion, and motivation, because beliefs about what children are like inevitably influence teaching practice. The purpose of…

Micro-credentials for educators offer an important opportunity to strengthen professional learning at scale. Accessed and awarded online, micro-credentials leverage an online technology platform to provide educators competency-based, on-demand, personalized, and shareable opportunities to demonstrate and be recognized for their professional…

Drawing on descriptions of research-into-practice initiatives, this article presents a new framework to aid understanding of how research findings influence educational practice at scale. The framework focuses upon five areas: trustworthiness of the findings and generalisability; implications and instructions for practice; support for…

Despite calls for evidence-based decision making, the field has a limited understanding of how educational leaders actually engage research. This study draws on a nationally representative sample of 368 district and school leaders who named pieces of research that were useful to their work. Educational leaders found frameworks and practical…

Successful higher education systems are student centered and constantly improving. They also are committed to addressing long-standing policies, perspectives, and practices that--intentionally or not--marginalize Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or People of Color (BILPOC) students, students from under-resourced families, and others who were not…

Project I4 is a federally funded SEED (Supporting Effective Educator Development) grant, a partnership between East Carolina University and the Institute for Educational Leadership. It is a cohort-based, yearlong professional learning experience aimed at reimagining instructional leadership through an equity lens. Specifically, school leader…

Recent research has identified interventions that improved achievement for students with low test scores in mathematics. The Assisting Students Struggling with Mathematics: Intervention in the Elementary Grades practice guide, developed by the What Works Clearinghouse™ (WWC) in conjunction with an expert panel, distills this recent research into…

The number of English learners (ELs) in Alabama has increased significantly in recent years. English learners include U.S.-born children whose first language is not English, newcomers to the U.S., and other students developing English proficiency. These children are in Alabama schools, acquiring academic English instruction that promotes mastery…

An emphasis on practice-based teacher education has led the Council for Exceptional Children to develop 22 high-leverage practices (HLPs). Each HLP is research based, used frequently in classrooms, and applicable across age, grade, and content area. In this article, we discuss the importance of a systematic process for teacher preparation programs…

Special educators are the primary implementers of evidence-based practices (EBPs) for school-aged students with autism. Twenty-eight strategies and interventions have been categorized as "evidence-based" with demonstrated efficacy for children and youth with autism (Steinbrenner et al., 2020). However, the research-to-practice gap…

Classroom teachers in PK-12 grades in the U.S.A. are under immense pressure to use data from internal and external sources in order to make decisions expected to transform their instructional practice to hopefully meet the adequate yearly progress demanded by accountability policies. This exploratory case study was conducted on a midsized school…