Background: School districts participating in the US Child Nutrition program are required to have a wellness policy. Many state agencies provide model policies to aid districts in policy creation. However, use of model wellness policies has not been associated with higher quality policies. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to assess…

Collaboration among Tribes, state educational agencies (SEAs), and local educational agencies (LEAs) is essential for supporting Native students and their education. This infographic highlights the importance of Native education and provides resources, examples, and funding opportunities to enhance collaboration.

School-based mental health services are those delivered by school-employed and community-employed providers in school buildings. With the implementation of provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010) that funds school-based health centers, school-based mental health services could become more broadly available in…

More than 50% of all college students with a disability enroll in public 2-year institutions. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a type of disability that affects a growing number of students in postsecondary education. Currently, over 70% of 2-year public institutions enroll students with ASD. In spite of increased awareness, the vast majority of…

Response to intervention (RTI) was included in the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), specifically as part of an assessment process to determine if a child has a disability. Although IDEA's focus is on students with disabilities, 10 states have developed policies that attend to students with gifts and…

Nationally, there are dozens of established indicators of school performance and thousands of possible combinations of those indicators to create an accountability framework. How do policy makers decide which variables are most important? This relates to measurement modeling -- that is, how to incorporate all pieces of the puzzle into a…

The content of this guide was derived from ongoing work of a working group on growth models coordinated and facilitated by the SLDS Grant Program's State Support Team. The Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Grant Program was asked by several states to review current growth models with the goal of determining the impact of different models…

The intention of this qualitative study was to explore the effects that instructional data systems have on a building level leader's capacity to evaluate student growth and inform principal practice. Principal leadership practices were examined through the lens of Kouzes and Postners' five practices of exemplary leadership (Kouzes & Posner,…

Response to Intervention (RtI) has gained increased attention with the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act. Since RtI was introduced at the policy level as a mechanism for use in the learning disability identification process, much of the implementation work has focused on this application. School-based…

Early education has been a growing priority for the Obama administration, and its competitive funding is spurring innovation in this field around the country. In 2013, early education journalist Paul Nyhan, author of this report, conducted case studies of four competitive grant programs that are triggering changes in early education: "Race to…

Explore successful models of intervention. No Child Left Behind has set the high expectation that every child meet grade level expectations. This publication synthesizes the research on intervention programs and best practices related to mathematical instructional pedagogy and differentiation to assist teachers, schools, and school districts in…

This qualitative study investigated the perceptions of 8 Local Education Agency (LEA) personnel who implemented the Transition Outcomes Project (TOP) in a midwestern state. These personnel represented 100% of the state LEAs who instigated the pilot of TOP in the participating state. Findings showed that TOP had 3 major positive effects: greater…

Response to Intervention (RTI) is an instructional framework through which schools can provide early intervention for students experiencing academic and behavioral difficulties. It is also promoted as an alternative to the IQ-discrepancy model for identifying students with learning disabilities. Most states have developed, or are developing,…

This article presents a model that instructional leaders can use to engage in a change process that fosters effective instructional change in school districts and individual school buildings, specifically middle schools and alternative middle schools. The authors describe four dimensions of leadership and explain how each dimension informs…

The Department has developed a Race to the Top program review process that not only addresses the Department's responsibilities for fiscal and programmatic oversight, but is designed to identify areas to differentiate support based on individual State needs, as well as certain topics where States can leverage work with each other and with experts…