The ability to significantly increase and sustain gains in early literacy for students with disabilities and a desire to bridge the gap between compliance and results-driven accountability (RDA) led Washington State to innovate a solution. This state spotlight will focus on Washington's improvement strategy to address this early literacy challenge…

The purpose of this presentation is to describe some of the activities of a partnership forged between NYU researchers and senior leaders in NYC that was intended to provide research infrastructure and capacity-building solutions while also addressing jointly identified research questions about the "Pre-K for All" (PKA) program. The…

This article describes a grant project that generated a technical guide for PK-12 educators who are utilizing social and emotional learning (SEL) assessments for educational improvement purposes. The guide was developed over a two-year period with funding from the Spencer Foundation. The result was the collective contribution of a widely…

School absenteeism and truancy confront educators on a daily basis. While public school districts in the U.S. experience daily rates of absenteeism, in the Los Angeles Unified school District (LAUSD), over 26,000 students miss school each day, totaling over 130,500 student absences each week. Regardless of whether these absences are excused (e.g.,…

The goal of the continuous improvement process in North Dakota K-12 education is to review and adjust practice to best support student learning. This study considered the continuous improvement services and supports provided by North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI), such as providing training and support through regional education…

In the fall of 2021, Redwood City School District (RCSD) placed a full-time, district-employed mental health counselor in each of its twelve schools in order to bolster district capacity to support student mental health and wellbeing. Stanford's John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities (Gardner Center) conducted a Year 1…

Although response to intervention (RTI) has been widely discussed in education literature and is increasingly being implemented in schools throughout the U.S., few studies provide empirical evidence of improved school-wide student outcomes. Presented here are data and an effect size analysis of school-wide student reading gains in five elementary…

In the 2024 legislative session, the Tennessee General Assembly passed Chapter 551 of the Public Acts of 2024 (PC 551), the Mathematics Supports Act (the Act), codified at Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 49-1-233 -- 49-1-234. The Act indicates the General Assembly's commitment to strong mathematics instruction in Tennessee to prepare students for postsecondary…

This popular book addresses literacy leaders' eternal quest to prepare all students for the demands of the 21st century. This updated Sixth Edition will help prospective and current literacy professionals understand how to organize and supervise literacy programs within the context of current state and federal mandates. With a focus on providing…

This paper presents eight practical guidelines that teachers can use to make core instruction more systematic and explicit for students with or at-risk for mathematics disabilities. In the paper, we use the notion of explicit and systematic instruction as a foundation for intensifying core math instruction. Explicit and systematic core instruction…

The study examined the efficacy of an early intervention program to improve children's sequential time perception through virtual versus pictorial training in arranging episodes of temporal scripts. The researchers examined 65 deaf and hard of hearing children ages 4-7 years who were divided into two groups: (a) virtual environments technological…

Continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers must be situated within the context of the practice of teachers and be relevant to their teaching and learning needs. A CPD project was conducted in a Hong Kong kindergarten class. For five years prior to the CPD project, the class had used a mixed curriculum of project approach topics and…

Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

As the nation transitions from responding to the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to navigating its ongoing impact on youth and their communities, K-12 students continue to experience mental health and wellbeing challenges. In the fall of 2021, Redwood City School District (RCSD) placed a full-time, district-employed mental health counselor in each…

The 2021-22 accreditation year continued to be impacted in significant ways by the ongoing nature of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. All accreditation activities, including site visits, were adjusted to reflect this new reality while maintaining full implementation of the system. This report presents information about the major activities of the…