Background: Positive youth development (PYD) programs adhere to the notion that all children have strengths and assets to be promoted and nurtured rather than deficits that require "fixing." The study of PYD programs indicates three aspects which set them apart from other programs for youth: activities, goals, and atmosphere. Of these,…

Rural school consolidation has significantly changed the landscape of rural education in China. Based on a study carried out in nine provinces, this article analyzes the effect of this policy initiative. It has led to increased school dropout rates in rural schools.

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine the experiences of Louisiana's Ensuring Literacy For All (ELFA) initiative from the perspective of educational administrators in order to identify: (a) the factors within ELFA that contributed to student reading performance; (b) the effects of the perceptions of ELFA…

The Skills and Training Plan (announced September 2012) projects that there will be nearly one million job openings between 2012 and 2020 in British Columbia. Of these openings, 43 percent will need trades and technical training. It is anticipated that there will be a cumulative gap of 22,000 to 32,000 technical and trades workers in the province.…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

The Biennial Report presents a selection of UNESCO-UNEVOC's activities during 2014 and 2015. The activities contributed to UNESCO's sectoral priorities and programmatic objectives and assisted Member States to provide equitable, inclusive and quality education and promote lifelong learning for sustainable development. Importantly, the selected…

This report expands on previous analyses to describe the skills needed to fill infrastructure occupations nationally. More than 14.5 million workers--or 11 percent of the entire U.S. workforce--are employed in infrastructure-related activities, many of which operate different physical assets and extend far beyond construction projects. In turn, a…

The Southern Education Foundation (SEF) engaged a group of 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a study of institutional effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to: (1) identify the issues related to capacity and institutional practice that contribute to overall campus effectiveness; and (2) to understand what, and how,…

The Department of Education Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2018-2022 describes the policy and operational priorities for the agency. The Plan details the Department's strategic goals and objectives over the next four years. The Plan also provides an overview of our Fiscal Year 2018-2019 Agency Priority Goals.

In response to the February 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, President Donald Trump established the Federal Commission on School Safety to review safety practices and make meaningful and actionable recommendations of best practices to keep students safe. The Commission conducted field visits,…

The imperative that all students, including English learners (ELs), achieve high academic standards and have opportunities to participate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning has become even more urgent and complex given shifts in science and mathematics standards. As a group, these students are underrepresented in…

This study illustrated a pathway of growth that a preservice teacher might traverse when learning to use and develop equitable assessments (EA). The study is rare in that it looks at the development of preservice teachers' understanding and ability to design EA. I examined the understanding and implementation of EA of 23 secondary preservice…

Quality Matters™ (QM) is a nationally recognized organization that certifies online courses for effective design, using an evidenced-based set of standards and a structured peer review process. In this paper, the authors demonstrate how academic librarians involved with online courses can adopt Quality Matters to build capacity for designing…

Developing teachers' knowledge about assessing English language learners (ELLs) is critical for achieving intended policy outcomes of improving teaching under Race to the Top policy and Common Core State Standards. In addition to teachers' expressed concerns about teaching Common Core State Standards to ELLs in a national survey…

From the early twentieth century to the present, citizen participation in U.S. public institutions--particularly schools--has continually decreased. The trend has been linked to the bureaucratization of public schools and their increasing reliance on expert knowledge for solutions to school- and education-related problems. The purpose of this…