The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grants program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, aimed to improve children's access to high quality early learning and development programs. RTT-ELC awarded $520 million in the first of three rounds of grants to help states…

The federal Race to the Top initiative signified a shift in American education policy whereby accountability efforts moved from the school to the teacher level. Using administrative data from Tennessee, we explore whether evaluation reforms differentially influenced mobility patterns for teachers of varying effectiveness. We find that the rollout…

Education laws and policies have moved toward promoting socio-emotional (SEL) skills, adopting numerous terminologies in their standards. However, the incremental change has left compensatory education practitioners who are committed to promoting SEL opportunities with little guidance when the programs' governing policies do not include language…

The current study explores how principals (n = 568) experience a new teacher evaluation model under Race to the Top. Findings suggest that principals felt the least confident in their ability to identify teacher behaviors associated with student achievement gains and placed the least value on student achievement data. Evaluation experience…

As an early Common Core booster, Michael Petrilli had hoped that by now--10 years after most states adopted the standards--the nation's schools would have logged tangible improvements in teaching and learning that resulted in higher student achievement. In this article, Petrilli reviews what Common Core is and discusses the work ahead that is…

"A State Policy Landscape: K12 Climate Action" looks at key areas where states have policies that can support schools in moving toward climate action. This report highlights opportunities for growth by focusing on state-level policy in the following focus areas: (1) mitigation; (2) adaptation; and (3) education. In this report, the…

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought new urgency to chronic and interrelated educational challenges: the need to expand and equalize postsecondary access, reduce the sector's reliance on costly in-person instruction, and develop a cumulative science of adult learning. Current federal government college funding programs do not encourage schools to be…

The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is responsible for managing the care and custody of approximately 175,000 federal inmates--an estimated 20 percent of whom have been diagnosed with a substance use disorder. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to review BOP's efforts to provide drug treatment to federal inmates. This report (1)…

Background: Schools may be an effective avenue for interventions that prevent childhood obesity. "I am Moving I am Learning/Choosy Kids"© (IMIL/CK) is a curriculum recommended by Head Start (HS) for education in nutrition, physical activity, and healthy lifestyle habits. Methods: We formed an academic-community partnership (ACP), the…

The evaluation community has demonstrated an increased emphasis and interest in evaluation capacity building in recent years. A need currently exists to better understand how to measure evaluation capacity and its potential outcomes. In this study, we distributed an online questionnaire to managers and evaluation points of contact working in…

Mississippi Department of Education requires that all school districts are in compliance with state and federal regulations in Title I, Title II, Title III, Title IV, Title V, Title VI, Title X and other federally-funded grants or programs. Federal regulations require that each school district throughout the state employ a licensed administrator…

Instructional coaching initiatives, primarily aimed at enhancing teachers' professional development, have become a popular avenue of school reform in districts across the United States. However, the precise role that instructional coaches should play in these reforms has largely remained ambiguous and unspecified. Further, not much is known about…

As a result of Race to the Top, states across the country vied for school improvement grants in order to advance educational reforms including effective professional development and teacher collaboration within their school districts. Requirements of the grant included the development of teacher evaluation systems and a professional development…

The TRIO Upward Bound program has been in existence for 50 years. The program is a federally funded pre-college program which supports the persistence and retention of low-income, potential first-generation students as they prepare for college. The TRIO programs have assisted thousands of students in their preparation and transition to higher…

Heterogeneity between and within people necessitates the need for sequential personalized interventions to optimize individual outcomes. Personalized or adaptive interventions (AIs) are relevant for diseases and maladaptive behavioral trajectories when one intervention is not curative and success of a subsequent intervention may depend on…