The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) serves as a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education. The WWC designs its resources to help educators, administrators, families, researchers, and policymakers make evidence-based decisions. In fall 2023, the WWC convened the Small Working Group of Experienced Education…

Job Corps is the largest and most comprehensive education and job training program in the United States for young people ages 16 to 24 who are not in school and are not working. To deepen the Job Corps program's ability to generate and use evidence to improve the labor market trajectories of eligible young people, this report discusses ways Job…

There are large gaps in educational access and attainment between the rich and poor in the United States. In 2016, there was a 25 percentage-point gap in college enrollment rates for high school graduates in the top and bottom family income quartiles. Reflections on Connecting Research and Practice in College Access and Success Programs is the…

The report, consolidating the findings from various stages of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory project on interorganizational collaboration in the dissemination of information for educational improvement, includes theoretical considerations, practical applications, and interpretative commentary. The substance of the report is drawn…

The ten papers in this collection commissioned by the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory take positions and speculate about particular obstacles which collaboratives and intermediaries face in working toward the improvement of educational practice and equity through regional approaches. The papers discuss (1) the essential characteristics…

This literature review examines four conceptual areas: (1) interorganizational collaboration; (2) the use of intermediary agencies; (3) the improvement of educational practice; and (4) the increase of educational equity. A focused review of the conceptual issue, a bibliography including research and literature citations, and abstracts of the most…

This report describes the organization, planning, and procedures for two seminars which examined alternative approaches to the achievement of two goals: increasing equity and improving educational practices. The seminars had as their major purposes the study and analysis of interorganizational collaboration as it enhances these goals, and the…

This paper reviews 11 studies dealing with collaborative organizational arrangements and investigates 26 projects involving such arrangements. The 11 studies identified as relevant to the work of conceptualizing a regional grants program include patterns of information useful for planning in the areas of organizational communication, definition of…

This monograph describes the origins and implementation of a Federal educational program, the Inquiry and Assistance Project (IAP), designed to improve urban public schools through the efforts of researchers and consultants in a research and development setting. The first section provides background information on the IAP study. Section two…

This guide provides summaries of federal programs in the physical and mathematical sciences of interest to colleges and universities. Programs from the following federal agencies are included: National Science Foundation; Department of Energy; Environmental Protection Agency; Office of Education; Department of Interior; Smithsonian Institution;…

As the only federal funding stream that provides dedicated funds for afterschool programs across the country, the 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) initiative plays an important role in supporting the innovation that takes place in afterschool programs. Social innovation has been defined as "a novel solution to a social…

The focus of this speech is a description of the process by which the National Institute of Education (NIE) will plan its research efforts in the area of teaching and curriculum. The first section of the document argues that the current relationship between funding agencies and researchers could be made more efficient if four essential types of…

Analyzes the intentions and results of federal efforts to promote educational improvement over the past 25 years. Federal efforts are described in the following areas: block grant funding; requirements for local evaluation and planning; research, development, and evaluation; linkage; and targeted support for local improvement. (CT)

This report provides a blueprint for reorganizing the governing structure of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and suggests new procedures of test development and test administration that will increase the interpretability of the assessment while at the same time making more staff and monetary resources available for research…

An examination was made of Federal program statistics on vocational education during the past 10 years by the Bureau of Occupational and Adult Education of the U. S. Office of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics of the U. S. Department of Education. The study found that despite a mandate for reform, the National Center's…