Rural school districts face unique challenges in procuring funds, recruiting staff, and obtaining high-quality technical assistance. This environment creates problems in identifying high-quality instructional materials and implementing best practices. A collaborative learning network can address these challenges by providing access to professional…

What does it take to transform a large, bureaucratic institution with a fractured culture and a compliance orientation into a nurturing, collaborative, vision-directed organization? This report and the accompanying research brief endeavor to answer that question by examining a humanistic and systems thinking approach to cultural change that took…

The Montana Autism Education Project (MAEP), that started in 2010, aimed to: (a) increase teacher knowledge of Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs), (b) provide on-site technical assistance and peer-to-peer collaboration, (c) develop sustainable support for teachers across Montana, and (d) develop inter-agency collaboration between the project and…

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Education distributed $2,500,000 via a competitive grant program, the Technical Assistance for Student Assignment Plans, to 11 school districts. The grants and their local effects provide an opportunity to examine the new politics of diversity in public education. Participants cited a wide range of conceptions of…

Adopt-A-School programs are models of school-community involvement and cooperation in which businesses, organizations, and industries adopt schools and contribute funds, personnel, or expertise to those schools for programs, projects, and services. This bulletin highlights the Adopt-A-School program in the Oakland (California) Unified School…

In April 2008, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) contracted with the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) to facilitate a series of regional workshops and provide technical assistance to strengthen efforts to improve college readiness for all students. This final report summarizes these activities…

The National School Resource Network (NSRN) has been established by a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, to meet the challenge of school disruption, violence, and vandalism. NSRN's goal is to assist schools in preventing and reducing these problems by identifying and…

This brochure describes the Regional Educational Laboratory Program, established in 1965, which is a program that represents a large investment in research and development by the U.S. Department of Education to help educators, policymakers, and communities improve schools. In fiscal year 2000, the network of 10 regional laboratories supplied…

A behavior contract is a tool that many teachers and school staff use to successfully control or modify the behavior of students. In such a contract, behavior that the teacher wants the student to achieve as well as the actions that the student promises to perform to achieve the desired behavior are stated in writing. There are many types of…

The Operation Stay-in-School (OSIS) program was developed to reduce truancy before it diminishes the value of the student's education, leads to other problems such as increased burglary, vandalism, and drug abuse, and reduces the school district's attendance revenue. Truants apprehended by police are taken to OSIS reception centers where they are…

The National Project on Career Education is a collaborative program of the Model Secondary School for the Deaf at Gallaudet College and the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID). The project is training educators in each state through an 18-hour 22-module workshop on career education and planning skills. (DB)

This report summarizes evaluation results for AISD's federally-funded Title IV safe and drug-free schools program activities for the 2007-2008 school year.

"Helping Hand" programs involve the physical identification of stores, homes, restaurants and other establishments to which children on their way to and from school may go for assistance and/or safety. Identification cards are placed in windows of cooperating establishments and homes. In some communities home owners "watch the…

During the past ten years, many school districts have established alternative schools or programs for students who are seriously disruptive and academically unsuccessful. This bulletin describes five different types of alternative programs that have been effective in dealing with disruptive youth. They include the Tri-C Community Centered…

The relationship between the Flint (Michigan) Board of Education and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation began in 1935 with a $6,000 grant. The relationship between the two organizations has made Flint the national laboratory for community education programs. Through the years, the Flint community schools have requested and received Mott…