"The Way We Do School: The Making of Oakland's Full-Service Community School District" offers an in-depth profile of the nation's most ambitious community school initiative. The book focuses on a nearly ten-year effort to transform all eighty-six district schools in Oakland, California into community schools in order to better meet the…

In this powerful new book, James Rickabaugh, former superintendent and current director of the Institute for Personalized Learning (IPL), presents the groundbreaking results of the Institute's half-decade of research, development, and practice: a simple but powerful model for personalizing students' learning experiences by building their levels of…

The purpose of the "Implementation Support Practitioner Profile" is to identify the skills and competencies needed by implementation support practitioners to support effective implementation and scaling of evidence-informed practices, programs and policies to improve outcomes for people and communities. The integration of implementation…

Teachers and school leaders frequently make decisions about which strategies will best support students who struggle academically or behaviorally, but evidence-based information about the quality of these strategies is not always available. Resources as the What Works Clearinghouse and the Regional Education Laboratories can help educators…

In December 2015, the U.S. Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and, with it, ushered in a new era of education policy in America. Leaving behind many of the most criticized aspects of its predecessor, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), this newest incarnation of the primary federal legislation guiding K-12 education provides state and…

The purposes of "Guidelines for Serving Students with Specific Learning Disabilities in Educational Settings" are to: (1) Update previous guidance on serving students with specific learning disabilities (SLD); (2) Provide guidance on the implementation with fidelity of the Response to Intervention (RTI) models as well as the discrepancy…

Prevention field has achieved major advances in developing, implementing, and testing the efficacy of preventive interventions in controlled settings. Nevertheless, there is still a gap in translating the success of programs in efficacy trials into real-life settings. Dissemination of evidence-based programs is a major challenge. The authors argue…

Using the USAID-funded South Sudan Teacher Education Project (SSTEP) as a case study, this paper examines the emerging guidance on the conflict-sensitive design and implementation of teacher education policy and programming in conflict-affected environments. We refer in particular to the guidelines and conceptual frameworks provided by the…

While academic interventions can be implemented in any grade, focusing on interventions in high school is critical because it is often a student's last chance to become ready for the academic demands of postsecondary education and careers. States across the country are implementing large-scale initiatives focused on delivering academic…

While literacy interventions can be implemented in any grade, focusing on interventions in grades 3-8 is critical because it is often the best chance for students identified with earlier reading deficiencies to become ready for the literacy demands of postsecondary education and careers. States in both the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL)…

This brief summarizes efforts to reform developmental education at Zane State College and the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC). Focused on accelerating student success and progress, the two schools pursued distinctive approaches to reform that aligned with their institutional missions and student populations. Recognizing that the…

This book is a step-by-step, concise, and easy-to-read reference for school teams, providers, students, and parents to understand, design, and evaluate positive behavior support (PBS) plans for students with developmental disabilities. It provides a clear conceptual framework on PBS to think critically about how to approach a student's problem…

The first step to meeting the fundamental aim of any educational institution is to understand clearly what the students need. Needs assessment is a tool educators can use to help meet this goal. Needs assessment data suggest the basis for plans, strategies, and practices that may ultimately lead to school improvement. This chapter reviews issues…

Reviews the research on the effectiveness of five thinking skills training programs: Instrumental Enrichment, Philosophy for Children, Structure-of-Intellect (SOI), Problem Solving and Comprehension: A Short Course in Analytical Reasoning, and Odyssey. Compares and contrasts the content of each program and describes the relative lack of adequate…

This article identifies potential users of disability-related information, lists categories of information need, considers information management at the national and local levels, offers an eight-step series of questions to guide in the provision of information services, and discusses sources of funding. (DB)