There is widespread acknowledgement that the production of effective teaching and teachers is perhaps the critical component of education reform and innovation for improvement of student learning. This aim requires a serious investment of time, rigor, and evaluation to produce professional-development programs that actually work. This report…

This report is the culmination of a yearlong effort to study the efficiency of the nation's public education system and includes the first-ever attempt to evaluate the productivity of almost every major school district in the country. In the business world, the notion of productivity describes the benefit received in exchange for effort or money…

Supported Employment is an evidence-based practice that helps people with mental illness find and keep meaningful jobs in the community. Given these outcomes the challenge for Supported Employment programs is to rethink the emphasis on immediate work for everyone and help consumers utilize appropriate education and training opportunities available…

Study abroad is generally recognized as a transformational experience for university students to help prepare them to be what many in higher education are now calling "global citizens." Responding to the need to prepare citizens for the interconnected global world of the 21st century, K-12 educators recently established new standards and…

This paper explores some aspects of effective professional mentoring practice for early career mathematics and science teachers, and discusses the Early Support Program (ESP), a research project conducted in 2009 and 2010 at a large Australian metropolitan university. It is argued that better outcomes may result from a more strategic…

Identifying what commonalities exist in high schools where students consistently outperform other demographically similar students is of particular interest to administrators and practitioners looking to increase graduation rates among all students. Schools that particularly improve the performance of students with special needs and those from…

School-based response to intervention (RTI) teams must gather, organize, chart, and interpret essential instructional information to make effective adjustments to meet the academic needs of struggling learners. Quantified data such as student proficiency scores, rate of progress trends, and achievement gap results provide the foundation for making…

The purpose of this Research and Policy Brief is to provide state and local policymakers with a comprehensive understanding of the measures used in teacher evaluation--their strengths, limitations, and current use in policy and practice. This brief will underscore aspects of evaluation policies currently aligned with best practices as well as…

The purpose of this research study was to identify examples of women education leaders at their best. There were two parts to the study procedures. First, the women were asked to write a case story about a time when they were involved in a successful leadership experience. Second, the women were divided into small groups of 5-8. In the small…

Since 2006, the Thomas W. Payzant School on the Move (SOM) Prize has been awarded annually to a Boston public school that has made significant progress in improving student achievement. This case study identifies the structures and strategies that best serve students in prizewinning schools, provides a profile of each of the four winning schools…

Despite the wide interest in and need for student-centered approaches to learning, educators have scant access to a comprehensive accounting of the key components of it. To build the knowledge base for the emerging field of student-centered learning, Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit based in Boston, commissioned papers from nine teams of…

This comprehensive book offers a practical pathway for developing twenty-first-century skills while simultaneously strengthening content-area learning. "Digital Learning" contains a wealth of research-based practices to integrate the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Education Technology Standards (NETS) for both…

As more young children enter school settings to attend early childhood programs, early childhood teachers and school psychologists have been charged with supporting a growing number of young children with chronic problem behaviors that put them at risk for the development of emotional/behavioral disorders (EBDs). There is a need for effective,…

As technology evolves and the world becomes more interconnected, a new set of skills have become necessary to be successful in the workplace. Schools need to develop and modernize in order to prepare students to be competitive in the changing global economy. The purpose of this case study was to identify the programs and practices that promote the…

Principals must be instructional leaders in their schools in order to adhere to federal, state, and local mandates as well as being able to discern that the programs for students with disabilities are being developed and implemented with fidelity to meet the needs of those students. The transition a school goes through to include students with…