Lynne Anderson-Loy teaches science to sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-graders in the Contemporary School and the Regional Safe School at Woodruff Career and Technical Center in the Peoria (Illinois) Public Schools District. In this article, she describes her experience of learning how to manage student behavior in various schools throughout her…

In the United States today organizational leaders are concerned with skills gaps, or the limited availability of qualified workers to fill open positions. The reason for their concern is the impact of skills gaps on organizational performance in a number of areas including productivity, customer satisfaction, profitability, and the ability to…

Areas of our country are headed toward significant social and political unrest if education ignores the demographic trends reshaping our schools. This article describes how one teacher training program in South Carolina examined its cultural context, accreditation standards, and course offerings to restructure its curriculum to address cultural…

Teaching children to write successfully is an area of great concern to educators in the 21 st century. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data, the writing skills of two-thirds of the students in elementary, middle, and high school are below grade level proficiency (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). In 2003, the…

This year, an experimental group of 31 academically average high school sophomores were dual enrolled in both high school and college and will earn nine college credits by June. This paper presents a mid-year evaluation of student academic outcomes, which will be used for program improvement and future planning. The researcher is a member of the…

The process for change undertaken by one early childhood teacher preparation program is described. While the changes were spurred in part by increasing emphases on standards and assessment systems, faculty noted concerns with how this framed the program and with how students negotiated learning in this system. After describing these concerns, the…

Federal student aid is intended to play an integral part in fulfilling the promise of greater academic access and success for less affluent students. However, many experts have expressed concern about the length and complexity of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the statutory need analysis formula used to determine aid…

Federal student aid is intended to play an integral part in fulfilling the promise of greater academic access and success for less affluent students. However, many experts have expressed concern about the length and complexity of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the statutory need analysis formula used to determine aid…

Retention rates at a southeastern community college declined to approximately 26% between 2009 and 2012. This decline in student success may indicate a problem with programs intended to help retain students. To promote student retention, the participating community college has recommended that students complete a college success course as part of…

Measurement in early childhood is an increasingly large-scale endeavor addressing purposes of accountability, program improvement, child outcomes, and intervention decision making for individual children. The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) is a measure relevant to intervention decision making for infants and toddlers, including response to…

The State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP), WV GRADUATION 20/20, was implemented during the 2015-2016 academic school year beginning with sixty-nine (69) schools in thirty-six (36) counties representing fifty-nine (59) percent of West Virginia's high schools. During the 2016-2017 academic year the number of high schools has grew to seventy-two…

This article describes the development of Virginia Improves Teaching and Learning (VITAL) as a statewide data warehouse focused on teacher education. The VITAL system is a longitudinal data system that tracks individuals from their entry into teacher preparation programs to employment in public schools. The system goes far beyond typical…

In 2004-05, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) began a groundbreaking partnership with the Eli Broad Foundation to develop the Academy for Leadership in Philadelphia Schools (ALPS), one of several Broad-funded, alternative principal development programs initiated across the country. The ALPS effort was designed to respond to two challenges:…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the association between Adult Day Health Center (ADHC) participation and health-related quality of life. Design and Methods: Case-controlled prospective study utilizing the Medical Outcomes Survey Form 36 (SF-36) to compare newly enrolled participants from 16 ADHC programs with comparable…

Scott Hamilton is the Forrest Gump of education reform, although with a lot more IQ points and fewer chocolates. He worked for Bill Bennett in the U.S. Department of Education and for Benno Schmidt at the Edison Project. He authorized charter schools in Massachusetts, co-founded the KIPP network, quadrupled the size of Teach For America (TFA), and…