The RSN designed the Student Learning Objectives (SLO) Toolkit to help States and school districts implement SLOs with the highest degree of quality. This updated version features over 100 State and district resources related to making SLO policy choices, providing SLO tools, selecting or creating assessments and setting targets, communicating…

The relatively low status of teaching as a profession is often given as a factor contributing to the difficulty of recruiting teachers, the middling performance of American students on international assessments, and the well-documented decline in the relative academic ability of teachers through the 1990s. Since the turn of the 21st century,…

This case study presents data to support the notion that turnaround school policy can improve the efficiency of how traditionally low-performing schools function. The schools that were successful in implementing the UVA Turnaround Program training developed a clear understanding of the expectations for participating in the UVA Turnaround Program…

This design experiment addresses the question: How can second-grade students from low-SES schools attain the same levels of achievement as students from high-SES schools on standards-based social studies and content area literacy assessments? Students from two high-SES school districts were assessed in order to establish target levels of…

As the student success movement has come of age at America's community colleges, much effort has gone into state-level reforms coupled with college-level efforts, on the theory that relying on individual institutions alone to bring change at scale across states and the nation will take too long and cost too much. But if centralized authority is…

Teachers are generally recognized as the schooling factor accounting for the highest proportion of student learning outcomes (Aaronson et al., 2007; Hanushek, 1986). This implies the quick and dramatic improvement in school performance observed in turnaround (TA) schools was associated with a major change in the performance of its teachers. This…

"Making the Grade: How Boards Can Ensure Academic Quality"--popularly referred to as "The Little Yellow Book" by boards, faculty, provosts, and assessment specialists--provides clear guidance for the board's role in the most important "business" of academe: educating students. As public calls for greater accountability skyrocket, this new edition…

The paper describes a mixed methods approach to the process of redesigning a principal preparation program. A qualitative approach was used to gather data from superintendents within the geographic area using a focused group approach, whereas, quantitative data, were gathered through a survey of program graduates with questions aligned to the…

In this paper Nancy Fraser's conceptual tools are drawn on to theorise issues of justice in a culturally diverse primary school in Australia where approximately 30% of the student population are immigrant/refugees. The paper examines justice issues of cultural recognition in relation to refugee student identity, behaviour and assessment. Drawing…

The purpose of this research was to determine how teachers and administrators in a successful North Carolina district perceived the purpose and value of a school improvement plan (SIP) and the planning process. The SIP is the accepted best practice for school-wide improvement, and the perceptions of the purpose and value of the process…

Purpose: With rapid industrialization and population growth in the urban and rural areas in India, the demand for public transport has risen sharply. In the fast changing scenario in the public transit sector, the role of a bus depot manager (DM) has also undergone substantial transformation. This paper aims to identify and gauge the…

Nearly every state has signed on to use the Common Core State Standards as a framework for teaching English/language arts and mathematics to students. Translating them for the classroom, however, requires schools, teachers, and students to change the way they approach teaching and learning. This report examines the progress some states have made…

Encouraging continuous improvement in the quality, scale and breadth of online education, the Sloan Consortium invites practitioners to share effective practices. This report synthesizes effective practices submitted by Sloan-C members to the online collection at http://www.sloanconsortium.org/effective as of December 2011. The synthesis includes…

This qualitative study of teachers in three low-performing elementary schools in Chicago reveals that transformational leadership behaviors were important to teacher motivation, affecting whether they believed that they could improve student performance as the accountability policy required. The findings suggest that principal leadership is…

Induction programs largely focus on informing the beginning teacher about the school culture and infrastructure yet the core business of education is teaching and learning. This qualitative study uses a survey, questionnaire, and interviews to investigate 10 beginning teachers' needs towards becoming effective teachers in their first year of…