This special report -- informed by the Education Commission of the States' March 2018 School Improvement Thinkers Meeting -- guides state leaders toward a better understanding of how to improve lower-performing schools. This brief contains questions in four key areas to provide a road map for digging into school improvement systems and orienting…

This slide deck is a toolkit to help districts adapt existing school performance frameworks to the current moment or create new ones. These slides identify and walk through the fundamental questions districts need to consider in designing school performance frameworks that acknowledge the challenges that schools and students are facing, as well as…

The recommendations in this brief create a framework for using data effectively to make instructional decisions. The availability of student-level data for educators has pushed forward the movement to strengthen the role of data to guide instruction and improve student learning. While improvements in technology and assessments, as well as recent…

According to federal data, African American students are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled. As a school leader, what do you do when your heart is in the right place, but your data show otherwise? In "Solving Disproportionality and Achieving Equity", Edward Fergus takes us on a journey into…

Improving school climate takes time and commitment from a variety of people in a variety of roles. This document outlines key action steps that school leaders--including principals, assistant/vice principals, and building leaders--can take to support school climate improvements. Key action steps are provided for the following strategies: (1)…

Many schools identified by states as needing improvement through their Elementary and Secondary Education Act waivers have selected Response to Intervention (RTI), a three-tiered instruction program sometimes referred to as tiered levels of instruction, as one of their main strategies for improving school performance and closing achievement gaps.…

Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest assisted Milwaukee Public Schools in developing a fidelity monitoring system for measuring schools' progress in implementing Response to Intervention (RTI). The study examined the ratings produced by that system to determine the system's reliability, schools' progress in implementing RTI, and whether ratings…

An increased emphasis on collecting and using data in schools has occurred, in part, because of the implementation of multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS). Commonly referred to as response to intervention in the academic domain and school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports in the behavioral domain, these initiatives have a…

"Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning" presents a clear and carefully tested blueprint for school leaders. It shows how examining test scores and other classroom data can become a catalyst for important schoolwide conversations that will enhance schools' abilities to capture…

"Data Wise: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Assessment Results to Improve Teaching and Learning" presents a clear and carefully tested blueprint for school leaders. It shows how examining test scores and other classroom data can become a catalyst for important schoolwide conversations that will enhance schools' abilities to capture…

This leadership framework, based on practices employed by some the nation's most successful principals, can be used to diagnose and address school needs. The framework is excerpted from "Breakthrough Principals" © 2016 by Jean Desravines, Jaime Aquino, Benjamin Fenton, and New Leaders, published by Jossey-Bass, a Wiley brand. The…