Launching and sustaining a laptop initiative is an expensive proposition. For that reason, districts often begin with modest pilots or roll out programs incrementally, a grade or two at a time. These days, few, if any, public school districts have budgets to finance full-service 1-to-1 programs. Instead, some seek outside assistance. Private…

This article describes an innovative approach, developed by North Carolina State University, to prepare leaders specifically for work in rural schools in high poverty districts. Operating with Race-to-the-Top funding, the Northeast Leadership Academy is a selective program with embedded practice and focused summer community internships. The…

This article features the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program at the University of Memphis. The McNair program is named after Ronald E. McNair, the second African-American in space, who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986. Approximately 200 campuses across the nation host the program. Whereas the program…

All over the world, international development organizations try to increase professional capacity of local staff. These attempts are thought to fail because of financial constraints, but this is just part of the story. Professional development and adult learning theories approach learning from a western perspective, while many developing societies…

British Columbia (BC) is a vast province in Canada made up of several distinct geographic areas. Most of the province's population lives in a few metropolitan areas, with the greater Vancouver area being the largest. British Columbians living outside these areas must travel significant distances to see specialists of any kind. Treacherous winter…

The study reviewed in this paper examined the effects of offering a school-wide teacher performance bonus program on students' reading and mathematics achievement. The study sample included 309 high-poverty New York City public schools serving students in grades K-8 from 2007-08 to 2008-09. Of these schools, 181 were randomly chosen to be offered…

This year's "Tennessee Higher Education Fact Book" consists of five sections and an appendix of additional resources and terminology. The five main sections of the report provide data on Student Participation, Student Success, Academic and Fiscal Trends, Quality Assurance Funding, and Outcomes-Based Funding. Each section begins with…

The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), an organization dedicated to redesigning and expanding school time to improve opportunities and outcomes for high-poverty students, has again teamed up with the Education Commission of the States (ECS), whose mission it is to foster the exchange of ideas on education issues among the states, to…

In November 2014, with broad bipartisan support, Congress reauthorized CCDBG [Child Care and Development Block Grant] (the major federal child care program) for the first time since 1996. The new law strengthens CCDBG's dual role as a major early childhood education program and a work support for low-income families. This implementation guide is…

Recent scholarship on secondary reading calls for a shift from teaching generic literacy strategies to teaching discipline-specific language and literacy practices (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2008; Moje, 2008; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012). This call for disciplinary literacy instruction (DLI) reflects the growing recognition that literacy…

Each issue of this annual newsletter focuses on a particular area of Kettering's research. The 2015 issue focuses on a yearlong review of Kettering's research over time. This issue contains the following articles that address this review: (1) How Kettering Discovered Democracy (David Mathews); (2) Key Events in KF History (Collette McDonough); (3)…

Through a comprehensive overview of policies and data related to the renewed European agenda for adult learning, this Eurydice report aims to support the exchange of policy and practice between countries. The report concentrates on measures to ensure that the most vulnerable groups of adult learners, in particular those with low basic skills or…

This report focuses on one of the State University of New York's (SUNY's) applied learning initiatives that includes work-based activities, e.g., co-ops, internships, work study, and clinical placement (SUNY Works). With funds from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, SUNY asked the Rockefeller Institute of Government to examine applied…

In 2002 the Council of the Great City Schools and its members set out to develop performance measures that could be used to improve business operations in urban public school districts. The Council launched the Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project to achieve these objectives. The purposes of the project were to: (1) Establish a common…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's sponsorship annual report highlights our work with eleven schools that served 4,150 students in five Ohio cities during the 2016-17 school year. We value this opportunity to keep stakeholders and the public informed about our efforts, and provide information on each of the schools that we sponsor. Additionally,…