Although Oregon has made recent gains in its overall high school graduation rate, 21?percent of public school students entering grade?9 in 2014 did not graduate within four years, by 2018. To improve graduation rates, Oregon voters approved Ballot Measure 98 in 2016 to fund dropout prevention and college and career readiness initiatives in high…

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly funded vouchers to moderate- and low-income students in low-performing public schools to enroll in participating private schools. Established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP expanded statewide in 2012. Drawing upon the random lotteries that placed students in LSP schools,…

In 2013, the NYC Leadership Academy (NYCLA) developed a leadership intervention--the Targeted Intensive School Support (TISS) program--in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) to support schools that were facing particular challenges. NYCLA asked the RAND Corporation to provide an independent evaluation of the…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the National Institute for School Leadership's (NISL's) Executive Development Program (EDP) and paired leadership coaching as implemented in three states, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) grant program. NISL's Executive Development Program (EDP) is a…

Reading Apprenticeship is a model of academic literacy instruction designed by the Strategic Literacy Initiative (SLI) at WestEd to improve student literacy skills and academic achievement. Based on understandings of the close relationship between curricular reform and professional development, Reading Apprenticeship includes an instructional…

Many talented students in under-resourced schools do not reach their full potential. Research shows that by sixth grade, children born into poverty have likely spent 6,000 fewer hours learning than their middle-class counterparts. Higher Achievement, an intensive summer and after-school program, aims to close that learning gap. It offers…

Across the country, school districts, their stakeholders, and policymakers have become increasingly concerned about suspensions, particularly about suspending students from elementary school and disproportionately suspending ethnic/racial minority students. Suspended students are less likely to graduate, possibly because they miss the…

This study assesses the implementation and impacts of the Teacher Potential Project (TPP), a program designed by EL Education and which includes an English language arts (ELA) standards-aligned curriculum and embedded professional development for teachers. The study uses a randomized controlled trial (RCT) design to assess the impacts of TPP on…

Objective: There are currently no empirically-supported, comprehensive school-based interventions (CSBIs) for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without concomitant intellectual and language disability. This study compared outcomes for a CSBI (schoolMAX) to typical educational programming (services-as-usual [SAU]) for these children.…

The three-tiered Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) framework promotes the development of systems and data analysis to guide the selection and implementation of evidence-based practices across multiple tiers. The current study examined the effects of universal (tier 1) or school-wide PBIS (SW-PBIS) in one state's scale-up of…

Postsecondary education is widely seen as a necessity in the modern economy, yet among low and middle-income families, college enrollment rates are dismayingly low -- and graduation rates are even lower. College Promise programs, which cover local students' college tuition and fees, are one strategy states and municipalities use to help. But…

Urban school districts often rely on alternative teacher certification programs to help address ongoing demands for recruiting and hiring qualified teachers. These programs offer pathways into teaching outside of traditional university-based teacher education programs. TNTP's Teaching Fellows program has been one of the most prominent alternative…

Many students who enter community college are deemed underprepared for college-level courses and are referred to developmental (remedial) education courses to build their math, reading, or writing skills. These students often struggle in developmental courses and in college more broadly. To help them, the City University of New York (CUNY)…

A growing body of research points to the ways in which principals influence teachers, classrooms, and, ultimately, student achievement. New Leaders aims to prepare transformational school leaders by partnering with districts and charter schools to offer rigorous, research-based training for aspiring principals. The Aspiring Principals program is…

In 2011, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) received an Investing in Innovation (i3) Grant through the U.S. Department of Education. UAF applied for the grant to expand the predominantly rural-serving Alaska Statewide Mentor Project (ASMP) to urban settings. ASMP is a professional development initiative that supplies fully released, highly…