In an effort to intentionally create the level of deep learning necessary for practitioners to make meaningful changes in their classrooms, professional networks are increasingly being promoted as mechanisms for knowledge creation that can make a difference for students. This paper explores the way networks function by testing a theory of action…

This paper describes three multigrade school reforms in Latin America: (1) Colombia's "Escuela Nueva", (2) Guatemala's "Nueva Escuela Unitaria", and (3) Chile's MECE-Rural. Each reform endowed primary teachers and students with special training and instructional materials, and encouraged new kinds of instruction in rural…

In this article, authors Deborah Helsing, Annie Howell, Robert Kegan, and Lisa Lahey argue that today's educational leaders face a host of complex demands as they strive to implement lasting, meaningful change in their school environments. As these demands often require a level of personal development many adults may not yet have, there is a need…

This article reports on the professional development of teacher educators within the context of a national project, "Professional Quality of Teacher Educators," where a professional standard and a standards-based procedure of (self-)assessment and professional development have been created and effectively implemented. This project…

The authors discuss how to use economic techniques to evaluate educational programs and show how to apply basic cost analysis to implementation of school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS). A description of cost analysis concepts used for economic program evaluation is provided, emphasizing the suitability of these concepts for evaluating…

As more and more schools adopt school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) as a model for school improvement and the success of initial demonstration sites becomes evident, districts are faced with expansion and sustainability issues. Careful planning of these implementation efforts requires district personnel to be familiar with the resources…

The mission of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is to provide rigorous evidence on which to ground education practice and policy and to encourage its use. The Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA) requires that the Director of IES, on a biennial basis, transmit to the President, the National Board for Education Sciences, and the…

As the nation's newest broad-based merit aid program, the Tennessee Education Lottery Scholarship program's generous eligibility requirements may target the very students who are disproportionately left out of similar programs in other states. This article compares the scholarship eligibility rates of Tennessee students with three other states:…

This article introduces a system that supports the organization of semi-structured, hierarchical educational content for use as supplement for social studies. The system also provides the content's presentation through both an automatically generated procedure and multimedia enhanced navigation tools.

Significant barriers exist to the implementation of evidence-based practices into routine mental health and substance abuse settings. This paper discusses the role and function of technical assistance centers to help support the implementation process using, as a guide, the experience of the Ohio Substance Abuse and Mental Illness Coordinating…

This paper describes three innovative European initiatives in postgraduate education in gerontology. The first is the European Masters Program in Gerontology (EuMaG), developed as an interdisciplinary joint program, supported and delivered by 22 European universities. Second, the Nordplus initiative to increase mobility of students and staff in…

This article talks about two alternative schools that have adapted to be a better fit for at-risk students than a comprehensive middle or high school might be. It is easy to suggest that an increase in the dropout rate is merely a natural result of the recent preoccupation with test scores. Whatever truth there may be to this, educators must still…

This article describes how Texas' Closing the Gaps initiative pays close attention to the demographics of its growing minority communities. West Texas A&M administrators created the University Success Academy (USA) in 2004, which was largely funded through the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board's First Generation College Student (FGCS)…

Students in the Orthotics and Prosthetics Technician Program at Oklahoma State University (OSU)-Okmulgee are provided with opportunities to develop multiple skill sets coveted by employers that will land them jobs in the industry as technicians, fitters or pedorthists. The program was recently restructured to become a technically based orthotic…

In this article, the authors describe how a Java applet can help to build learners' intuitions about basic ideas of algebra. "Matchbox Algebra" is a Java applet the authors have designed to enable learners to grasp a key idea in learning algebra: that the letter "x" may be thought of as representing an as-yet-unknown number. They describe the…