Background: Recent federal policies aimed to ensure that all children have equitable access to healthy school nutrition environments. However, historically, disparities have persisted in the quality of school nutrition environments across geographic and socioeconomic groups. There is limited literature addressing if and how recent efforts to…

NCSS Executive Director Susan Griffin was chair of the Task Force of Professional Organizations that worked with the Social Studies Assessment, Curriculum, and Instruction Collaborative (SSACI) of the Council of Chief State School Officers to initiate and guide the development of the "College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social…

Foundations across the country engage in grantmaking to eliminate the opportunity and achievement gaps in K-12 public schools. Many of the strategies and investments that funders have supported in recent years focus not only on "more time" but also on "better use of time" in schools. This better use of time centers on outcomes…

On September 17, 2013 (Constitution Day), the C3 Framework was released under the title "The College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History." The C3 Project Director and lead writer was NCSS member Kathy Swan, who is…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the formative evaluation results from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Healthy School Communities (HSC) pilot project. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilized 11 HSC pilot sites in the USA (eight sites) and Canada (three sites). The evaluation question was…

Background: A US federal mandate that school districts devise and implement local wellness policies (LWPs) has potential widespread impact on the nutritional content of foods and beverages available in schools and on the amount of physical activity that students engage in; however, evidence concerning the mandate's effectiveness is limited. This…

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is the latest development in a long history of standards-based-reform in the United States. As of November 4, 2011, 46 states and the District of Columbia have adopted new curricular standards, called the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These states and the District of Columbia are now implementing…

The purpose of this study was to describe a collaborative partnership model known as the Global Educational Ecosystem, which involves three K-12 schools in Northern California, community organizations (representing science, technology, health, and arts), and Xilinx, Inc. from the perspectives of the leaders of the involved partner organizations in…

This paper presents a case study of a stakeholder-collaborative approach to the utilization of evaluation. The roles of participants were extended to incorporate: the design, administration, and interpretation of surveys and interviews; extensive data-gathering; and development of major portions of the final report. (Author/LMO)

A consortium of Elliott , Rowan, and Morgan Counties (Kentucky) received a grant from the Kentucky Department of Education to demonstrate methods by which existing and future gifted and talented programs may be evaluated. A Multiattribute Utility Model was adopted, because the model avoids the pitfalls of an experimental method while providing…

On January 23, 2004, President Bush signed the DC School Choice Incentive Act into law. This landmark piece of legislation included $14 million in funding for what would come to be called the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The OSP is the first federally funded K-12 scholarship program in the country and is designed to provide…

In January 1982, the Wake County Board of Education adopted The Schools of Choice Programs. The stated objectives of the Programs were: (1) to improve facility utilization systemwide, (2) to establish a consistent organizational pattern of schools (K-5, 6-8, and 9-12) county-wide, (3) to racially balance student populations of schools, (4) to…

This paper describes the practical steps employed in controlling interview data generated from a research project investigating teachers' perspectives on the worth of a sex equity educational demonstration project. These perspectives were then considered as value frameworks that might be used to formulate and interpret a naturalistic-responsive…

The Fairfax County, Virginia, Schools' Elementary Writing Program (EWP) was evaluated over a two-year period. The first year focused on describing and analyzing program development and implementation. The second year of the evaluation addressed program effectiveness. Three questions comprised the development and implementation phase of the…

National teacher shortages have driven the market for alternative means of teacher certification. This study sought to understand what mentorship means to 27 beginning teachers in a university-district partnership Alternative Certification Program (ACP) in an effort to understand the participants' perceptions. The process included administering…