Professional organizations can play an important role in the lives and work of educators. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore Alabama educators' experiences with membership in statewide professional organizations and to determine what benefits, if any, members feel their organizations provide them. Four main benefits that…

Low-income students struggle with resources while trying to achieve future financial stability. As colleges explore ways to support students, one solution is integration with public benefits. This study focuses on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a program that offers cash assistance to low-income adults with children. Statistical…

Teachers need training and support to address the secondary traumatic stress (STS) they may experience as well as identify and address students' trauma. To ensure that all teachers can do both, state leaders need to embed trauma-informed practices in mandated teacher training on trauma and self-care. A trauma-informed education system will ensure…

High-stakes, standardized testing plays an important role in the lives of many students as they apply to college and compete for scholarships. In states where college readiness measures, like the ACT® test, are used for school and district accountability, the ACT scores of all students, whether college-bound or not, are a top priority for school…

We describe the results of a study designed to assess knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes towards evidence-based and other prevention programs among county Extension educators. We examined differences across educators from Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) and 4-H Youth Development. Analyses based on a multi-state sample of educators revealed…

The Issue: To prepare for the demands of postsecondary education and the workforce, students need to master content and build skills that allow them to collaborate with others, and then apply that knowledge to new situations. Students will be able to access a wider range of opportunities in college, career, and civic life if they possess the…

Professional development (PD) for early childhood educators has received increased attention as a means of bolstering young children's learning and development. Theory and research indicate that educators' characteristics play roles in both their own learning and that of children; however, little research has explored who participates in PD. This…

This study explores professional development for school executives in a suburban school district in North Carolina. Survey research and descriptive statistics were utilized to capture demographic data and the perceptions of professional development opportunities in this setting. The knowledge level of each participant related to the school…

Items on test score scales located at and below the Proficient cut score define the content area knowledge and skills required to achieve proficiency. Alternately, examinees who perform at the Proficient level on a test can be expected to be able to demonstrate that they have mastered most of the knowledge and skills represented by the items at…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress--commonly called "The Nation's Report Card"--tells a dismal story: Only 2% of high school seniors in 2010 could answer a simple question about the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark "Brown v. Board of Education" decision. And it's no surprise. Across the country, state educational…

The study in this article compared counselors and teachers on measures of suicide knowledge and prevention practices after participation in a statewide training program in student suicide prevention using the "Question, Persuade, and Refer" program. Follow-up surveys conducted an average of 4.7 months after training indicated that trainees (73…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the fourth of these studies, focusing on state standards for mathematics. For this evaluation of mathematics standards, researchers developed nine criteria under the four areas of: clarity, content, reason, and negative qualities.…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the third of these studies, concentrating on geography, the core subject that has been the most neglected in the U.S. academic curriculum. Standards documents were solicited from all the states, and were submitted by 38 states and…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the second of these studies, focusing on standards for history. After the controversy surrounding the proposed "national history standards" in 1994, history has become a subject with no generally accepted national standards.…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation has commissioned studies of state academic standards in five core subjects. This is the fifth of these studies, focusing on state standards for science. Thirty-six states presented standards for evaluation. Some states were in the process of revising standards, while others simply had no standards to present.…