In 1998, Angela Jerabek, a guidance counselor at a high school outside Minneapolis, grew frustrated watching too many ninth-graders fail courses year after year. Her principal encouraged her to come up with a new strategy to address the problem, knowing that failed classes too often lead students to drop out of high school. By the next school…

In 2009 President Barack Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Dragoset, et al., 2017). The Recovery Act served as the financial umbrella which helped to allocate $3 billion to fund School Improvement Grants to support states and school districts in championing original, innovative programs as well as to hire staff to…

The Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund was established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which called on the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to provide student achievement awards to local education agencies and nonprofits with a record of improving student achievement. ED set priorities for the program and specified them in…

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of…

In 2009, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) produced its first "Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder Research" (ED509368), providing a framework to guide the efforts of federal and private funders of autism research. The "IACC Strategic Plan," developed with extensive input from a broad array of federal…

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the U.S. has been notably gloomy. Observers argue that either nothing works or we don't know what works. At the same time, the federal government is asking localities to implement evidence-based interventions. But what is known empirically about whether school…

In 2009, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) launched its "Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder Research" (ED509368), providing a framework to guide the efforts of Federal and private funders of autism research. The "IACC Strategic Plan," developed with extensive input from a broad array of Federal and…

In response to the recession that began in 2007, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed into law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. Law 111-5). At an estimated cost of $831 billion, this economic stimulus package sought to save and create jobs, provide temporary relief to those adversely affected by the…

In response to the recession that began in 2007, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed into law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. Law 111-5). At an estimated cost of $831 billion, this economic stimulus package sought to save and create jobs, provide temporary relief to those adversely affected by the…

The purpose of the United States Department of Education's (the Department) Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 "Agency Financial Report" (AFR) is to inform Congress, the President, other external stakeholders, and the American people on how the Department used the federal resources entrusted to it to promote student achievement and preparation for…

The purpose of the United States Department of Education's (the Department) Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 "Agency Financial Report" (AFR) is to inform Congress, the President, other external stakeholders, and the American people on how the Department used the federal resources entrusted to it to promote student achievement and preparation for…

One objective of the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) School Improvement Grants (SIG) and Race to the Top (RTT) program is to help states enhance their capacity to support the turnaround of low-performing schools. This capacity may be important, given how difficult it is to produce substantial and sustained achievement gains in low-performing…

This final audit report covers the results of the review of five State educational agencies' monitoring plans and awarding processes for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and regular School Improvement Grants funds that the State educational agencies awarded for fiscal year 2009 (for use during school year 2010-2011). The objectives…

The purpose of the United States Department of Education's (the Department) Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 "Agency Financial Report" (AFR) is to inform Congress, the President, other external stakeholders, and the American people on how the Department used the federal resources entrusted to it to promote student achievement and preparation for…

This study examined the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act federal mandate of the Transformation Intervention Model (TIM) outlined by the School Improvement Grant, which was designed to turn around persistently lowest achieving schools. The study was conducted in four high schools in a large Southern California urban district that selected the…