The District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003, passed by the Congress in January 2004, established the first federally funded, private school voucher program in the United States. The purpose of the new scholarship program is to provide low-income parents, particularly those whose children attend schools identified for improvement…

In 2004 ECMC Foundation published a guide called "Realizing the College Dream" (RTCD) which is designed for educators and staff to help low-income, first-generation college, middle and high school students increase their expectations of attending postsecondary education, and take steps to realize this goal. While ECMC Foundation trainings and…

The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (Hall & Hord, 2006) is one tool educational leaders can use to understand the process of change and teachers' stage-related concerns when implementing innovations. This paper presents select findings from a comparative case study of two urban elementary schools in which changes in teachers' reports of their…

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of what is known about teacher induction in special education and to outline recommendations for the design of induction programs and further research. Five questions guided this research: (1) What are the experiences and concerns of new special educators in their first years of…

This paper measures the relationship between home prices and nearby school quality in an area with expansive public and private school choice: Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The author and his colleagues first look for a continuing relationship between a home's price and its location relative to a higher quality school during a time when theoretically…

This document presents a five-step process for schools, districts, and states to use in monitoring accommodations for instruction and assessment. This document was designed to be a companion to the "Council of Chief State School Officers' Accommodations Manual: How to Select, Administer, and Evaluate Use of Accommodations for Instruction and…

Invest Early is an effective program in preparing low-income students for school success when delivered in sufficient quantity. Wilder Research, in conjunction with the Invest Early leadership team and staff, is conducting a longitudinal and cost-benefit evaluation, documenting and assessing implementation of Invest Early and outcomes for the…

In this article, we report kindergarten student and teacher outcomes from a quasi-experimental evaluation of The Superkids, a systematic, phonics-based, comprehensive K-2 reading program. We recruited 23 kindergarten teachers to implement The Superkids program from a diverse, yet predominantly ethnic minority, group of classrooms from across the…

How leaders learn to become leaders has been an area of much research. When asked what were the key experiences in learning leadership, leaders often speak of the importance of "on-the-job" experiences, yet these experiences are rarely fully detailed in the research literature. The importance of "apprenticeships" and being…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a knowledge transfer method that capitalizes on both research and teaching dimensions of academic work. It also aims to propose a framework for evaluating the impact of such a method on the involved stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach: The case study outlines and evaluates the six-stage…

This substudy in the evaluation design of the Math and Science Partnership (MSP) Program Evaluation examines student proficiency in mathematics and science for the MSPs' schools in terms of changes across three years (2003/04, 2004/05, and 2005/06) and relationships with MSP-related variables using Management Information System data with the…

Interventions that aim to promote social competence, reduce problem behavior, and improve school climate are common at all levels of schooling. This whole-school focus, coupled with researchers' concerns about contamination or spillover effects in evaluations that randomly assign classrooms or students to conditions, as well as advances in…

There are fierce debates over the best way to prepare teachers. Some argue that easing entry into teaching is necessary to attract strong candidates, whereas others argue that investing in high quality teacher preparation is the most promising approach. Most agree, however, that we lack a strong research basis for understanding how to prepare…

Purpose: The objectives of this study were to develop measures of end-of-life (EOL) care processes in nursing homes and to validate the instrument for measuring them. Design and Methods: A survey of directors of nursing was conducted in 608 eligible nursing homes in New York State. Responses were obtained from 313 (51.5% response rate) facilities.…

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a review of reviews to identify characteristics of effective sex and relationship education (SRE) interventions and/or programmes in young people to improve sexual health and identify barriers and facilitators for implementation. Six bibliographic databases were searched from 1986 to 2006 for systematic…