In "School Rethink 2.0," editors Frederick M. Hess, Michael B. Horn, and Juliet Squire gather leaders immersed in the nuts-and-bolts work of educational reinvention to present ten promising education improvements and ways to implement them. Contributors, including acclaimed education pioneers Sal Khan, Beth Rabbitt, and Larry Berger,…

Even under ideal conditions, teaching is tough work. Facing unrelenting pressure from administrators and parents and caught in a race against time to improve student outcomes, educators can easily become discouraged (or worse, burn out completely) without a robust coaching system in place to support them. For more than 20 years, perfecting such a…

COVID-19 prompted unprecedented disruptions to schools with challenges particularly severe for high-poverty remote rural schools. This case study recounts the story of a rural school that had participated in a research-practice partnership (RPP) multi-year improvement effort prior to the pandemic and documents the ways the RPP and the school-based…

In 2020, the Foundation for Child Development released "Getting it Right: Using Implementation Research to Improve Outcomes in Early Care and Education." The publication provides insights into the value of including implementation research in the study of early care and education (ECE) and its potential to improve programs and policies…

Improving Social and Emotional Learning in Primary Schools reviews the best available research to offer school leaders six practical recommendations to support good SEL for all children. It stresses this is especially important for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and other vulnerable groups, who, on average, have weaker SEL skills at all…

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…

This guide is for superintendents, principals, staff developers, teachers and professional development providers--in short for anyone who has a stake in ensuring that professional learning has greater impact on improving practice and increasing student learning. The purpose of this guide is to help schools, districts, and SU/LEAs put in place…

It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a community of educators to improve a school--a community that includes administrators and teachers in different, but equally important, roles. A district's changes can only show results once their improvements reach the classroom. At the same time, teachers need support from their districts to…

To assist system administrators as they pursue their own teacher leadership initiatives, this profile from Leading Educators and the Aspen Institute details the steps Denver Public Schools (DPS) took to design and implement its Differentiated Roles pilot. Specifically, it examines the initiative's opportunities and challenges within the context of…

This "Informed Educator" examines research-proven strategies for implementing and sustaining school improvement by looking at the key elements of the process, enabling conditions for improvement, issues of school culture, and implementation. It also looks at school turnarounds and how to sustain school improvement once reforms are implemented.

The Study of School Turnaround examines the improvement process in a purposive sample of 35 case study schools receiving federal funds through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program over a three-year period (2010-11 to 2012-13 school years). This evaluation brief focuses on 11 of these SIG schools with high proportions of English Language…

The "Value-Added School Review (VSR)" is an analytical model designed to assist schools in identifying and addressing opportunities for school improvement. The model works best when it is focused purposefully on students and the student learning outcomes as defined in the "Guide to Education". It complements the processes…

This report provides a plan that teachers and school supervisors can use to implement seven tips for improving instructional skills. Designed to be referred to regularly, it includes three levels of implementation, as well as recommendations for utilizing technology to support each tip. The seven recommendations include: (1) Use technology to help…

Interscholastic competition is an excellent means for showcasing social studies for students, parents, and the local community. Described is a social studies tournament as designed by one high school. Specifically discussed are tournament divisions, format, content, team selection and composition, instrument preparation and scoring, tournament…

President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" plan for educational improvement is based on four principles: accountability for results; local control and flexibility; expanded parental choice; and effective and successful programs. The program is dedicated to lifting up all teachers so that these teachers can, in turn, lift up their…