Statway® is one of the Community College Pathways initiatives developed by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to promote students' progress beginning in developmental math to and through college math credit. Early descriptive results suggested that the Statway program has tripled the success rate for students in half the time…

The United States continues to have one of the highest teen birth rates in the developed world, and adolescent rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are also high. These factors highlight the need to identify effective evidence-based programs to improve adolescent reproductive health. This brief synthesizes findings from 118 experimental…

Illinois advanced landmark reforms in recent years to improve instruction for its 2 million students. Built upon the bedrock of new, rigorous Common Core State Standards, Illinois education leaders stepped up student expectations, championed educator evaluations intended to provide feedback and improve instruction, redesigned school report cards…

Today's researchers seek to determine if contemporary pre-K programs provide the strong return on investment found by researchers in the 1960's High/Scope Perry Preschool Program and 1970's North Carolina Abecedarian Project. Research then showed that these two programs created positive academic effects that accompanied their students as they…

This study presents an analysis of a Czech pilot project in implementing the Eco-School program in kindergartens. The evaluation applied a mixed design that included pre/post testing of children using picture-based questionnaires, and interviews with the teachers responsible for conducting the program. The findings revealed a significant increase…

A critical issue in educator preparation is how to ascertain if program graduates are sufficiently prepared to be effective through the acquisition of meaningful evidence of graduates' impact on their students. Challenges to proving specific impact of educator-preparation programs on student learning include identifying and following program…

Many students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have specialized interests and passions that are highly reinforcing. Such special interest areas (SIAs) are more than mere hobbies or simple curiosities. Rather, the SIAs of an individual with autism may be characterized by (a) significant depth and breadth of knowledge about the area, (b)…

This study examined how instructors and learners in residential outdoor education programs utilized mobile technologies and Web 2.0 applications. Twenty semistructured interviews were conducted with instructors, support staff, and administrators at a nonprofit institution that provides outdoor education programs. Sixty-five participants in those…

As the early education coordinator for Prince George's County Public Schools, Judith P. Hoyer lamented the gaps in available services for low-income families. In the 1990s, she created a central location in Adelphi, Maryland, for important early childhood services, thus fostering cooperation of governmental and private agencies around the needs of…

In this article, Andy Frey and colleagues present the Motivational Interviewing Training and Assessment System (MITAS), an evidence-based strategy for counselors to improve student engagement. The article documents the feasibility of the MITAS and the large gains to be made in school counselor competencies through its implementation, providing a…

Non-randomized studies may provide valuable evidence on the effects of interventions. They are the main source of evidence on the intended effects of some types of interventions and often provide the only evidence about the effects of interventions on long-term outcomes, rare events or adverse effects. Therefore, systematic reviews on the effects…

The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program, more commonly known as GEAR UP, is a product of federal legislation designed to increase high school completion and college attendance of low-­income youth. It is a federally funded discretionary grant program that is planned, organized and operated at the state and local level.…

The paper examines the benefits claimed for action learning at individual, organisational and inter-organisational levels. It goes on to identify both generic difficulties in evaluating development programmes and action learning specifically. The distinction between formative and summative evaluation is considered and a summative evaluation…

In their article, "The Common Core is a Change for the Better," Gardner and Powell (2013) make an argument in support of implementing the Common Core to improve teaching and student learning. They opine the Common Core will enable students to become more college and career ready and state the Common Core standards will provide…

In the Innovative Professional Development (iPD) Challenge, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has invested in helping school districts and networks redesign their instructional support systems to better support educators in increasing student success. This Issue Focus, the second in a series, presents early reflections from MDRC's evaluation…