One of the most important jobs of a school principal is to recruit, hire and retain highly qualified teachers who positively impact student achievement (Balossi & Hernandez, 2016; Berry, 2002; Berry, Hoke, and Hirsch, 2004; Darling-Hammond & Berry, 2006; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 2003; Hunting et al., 2017; Jones, Nathan, Maier, &…

This case explores the creation of an open badge student-employee training program. Utilizing competency-based learning, we created nearly 40 digital credentials for technical skills related to various software products. We specifically share the decisions we made related to the process of defining competencies, formatting badge criteria, and…

In every state in the U.S., students have been victims of sexual abuse at the hands of teachers and other adults at schools. Charol Shakeshaft asks why educators, policy makers, and others connected with schools haven't done more to address this problem but have instead looked the other way, sometimes even allowing colleagues to quietly transfer…

As information becomes readily available at an instant, library users today have a high expectation of how quickly books are available for use. Therefore, librarians must evaluate purchasing models and how they meet the needs of today's patrons. A study was done at the University of Mississippi Libraries comparing usage statistics between patron…

Constructivism is somewhat opposite of a mandated curriculum. It does not emphasize testing to ascertain pupil achievement. Nor is it a teacher determined reading curriculum. A formal reading curriculum with measurably stated objectives would not harmonize with constructivist thinking. Flexibility is a key concept in describing, in part, its basic…

Practice tests provide large mnemonic benefits over restudying, but learners judge practice tests as less effective than restudying. Consequently, learners infrequently utilize testing when controlling their study and often choose to be tested only on well-learned items. In 5 experiments, we examined whether learners' choices about testing and…

This post is one in a series highlighting MDRC's methodological work. In the past decade, rapid growth in the number of charter schools and school district choice systems has provided education researchers with exciting opportunities to use naturally occurring pockets of randomization to rigorously study the effects of policy-relevant education…

The purpose of this study was to analyze teacher-selected children's literature for its potential use with critical pedagogy in the elementary classroom. This multi-analytical study uses tenets from critical multicultural analysis (CMA) and components from visual analysis (VA) to guide a critical content analysis of teacher-selected children's…

Community college leadership has been changing at the presidential level. Senior-level leaders at many colleges are retiring, changing positions, or being changed by the Board of Trustees. Schaffer (2018) states, "Right now, we face a crisis in the leadership of our community colleges. Far too many of our leaders are leaving and,…

Experts within gifted education have advocated for the use of local norms when selecting students for gifted programs, instead of national-level norms. Local norms compare students to their immediate peers to identify gifted students and are believed to produce a more diverse gifted program. However, district integration limits the ability of…

Providing challenging curriculum in a literacy classroom of students whose reading abilities range widely can be a challenge. Integrating interdisciplinary book selections into a self-selected reading program, however, provides students with challenge by engaging them with big ideas. This article describes methods of integrating advanced…

Salaries are one of the most powerful policy levers states and school districts can use to attract qualified, effective, and diverse teachers. What role do states play in supporting strategic use of salaries? This report examines the state teacher compensation policies that influence districts' potential strategic use of teacher pay. It analyzes…

Interest in mentoring, which is an innovative method in adult education (CEDEFOP, 2013), has been growing rapidly in Europe, especially since the Lisbon European Council in 2000. In Greece, this interest has found expression either through the development of educational material in the context of adult educator training programmes, or the…

In this narrative inquiry, the author dramatises the tensions and discoveries that emerged in a literature course for pre-service and in-service teachers in an English education graduate programme. The students' resistance to the instructor's choice of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" as a central text led to reflection on responsible and…

A substantial and growing body of research suggests that strong school leadership is critical for shaping productive learning environments, supporting high-quality teachers and teaching, and influencing student outcomes. But what characteristics contribute to high-quality principal preparation programs and learning experiences? And to what extent…