School Improvement Grants (SIG) represent one type of governments' capacity-building investment to spur sustainable changes in America's persistently under-performing public schools. This study examines both short- and long-run effects of the first two cohorts of SIG schools from two states and two urban districts across the country. Using dynamic…

Young children's exposure to early math concepts is important in their development, in their confidence in math skills, and in their ability to use math later in life. In 2013, the Heising-Simons Foundation embarked on an innovative path to support children's early math development. The Foundation invited several family engagement providers to…

Resident assistant training happens every year for the approximate 10,000 RAs who work on campuses across the country. These training programs can include classes, pre-service summer weeks, and ongoing training throughout the year. Following educational and training models such as CAS, assessment, Bloom's taxonomy, adventure programming, and…

Over the last decade, Eleanor Drago-Severson has authored or coauthored four books on adult learning as key to leadership development in schools. organizations--is evident in each of the publications. The titles include the following: (1) "Helping Teachers Learn: Principal Leadership for Adult Growth and Development"; (2) "Leading…

Physical activity is place-based, and being able to assess the number of people and their characteristics in specific locations is important both for public health surveillance and for practitioners in their design of physical activity spaces and programs. Although physical activity measurement has improved recently, many investigators avoid or…

Although a growing body of evidence underscores the contributions of community-based participatory research, community coalitions and other community engagement approaches to addressing health equity, one of the most potent forms of engagement--community organizing--has attracted far less attention in our field. Yet, organizing by and for…

Persistent school non-attendance (PSNA) is a widely acknowledged problem. Family coaches work intensively with families where a child or young person (CYP) has persistently poor or no school attendance and there is unemployment or anti-social behaviour. Their work extends across different systems, which gives them a unique, multi-factored…

Practitioner research is increasingly used by and with teachers to counter discourses and policies of top-down standardisation. Growing numbers of researchers advocate benefits as the learning and empowerment of educators, and the sense of achievement for university researchers when they research with rather than about educators. We focus here on…

Research on the role of institutions in influencing students' readiness for college has so far focused primarily on the school level and the state policy context, with only little attention to the district. This case study, based on interview data and documents collected over the course of a year, analyzes an urban district's attempt to create a…

The Connecticut Center for School Change has been working for several years to provide timely, effective, research-based coaching to principals, particularly those who are new to their role in relatively low-performing schools and districts. The Center has been studying their efforts with the help of an expert external evaluator, and the Center…

The nature of academic librarianship is changing as librarians move away from the curation of material and into research support roles. Although this creates new opportunities it can be difficult for staff to learn the skills needed. The Office of Scholarly Communication at Cambridge University seeks to address this issue with the Research Support…

To prepare students to work competently with financially at-risk individuals, families, and communities, social work schools need to bring economic literacy skills into the curriculum. This article describes an ambitious financial capability education initiative in New York City. It reports on a unique collaborative effort to develop, use, and…

The Investing in Innovation (i3) Improving Rural Achievement Community, a professional learning community of grantees under the US Department of Education's i3 program, created this document to share knowledge and experiences related to working in rural districts across the United States. Grounded in field-based experiences and lessons, it serves…

Like Berkeley, the UC system as a whole is quickly running out of space to accommodate the next generation of Californians who will be reaching college age by mid-century. Even with the added capacity at UC Merced, the UC system will run out of space on existing campuses in the next decade. In the normal course of events, this would trigger…

This equity toolkit is designed as an opportunity for school stakeholders to gauge, reflect on, and plan for meaningful youth participation in advancing more equitable and inclusive schools. In essence, this tool is designed to meet school stakeholders where they are and provide them with opportunities for reflection and planning in order to…