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 article describes the process of ecological school consultation within a university's place-based community engagement initiative. Within higher education, place-based initiatives are geographically specific partnerships between community organizations and a university. First, this article explains the collaboration between a middle school…

The Mastery-based Learning (MBL) Work Group has examined opportunities to increase student access to relevant and robust mastery-based academic pathways aligned to personal career goals and postsecondary education, and reviewed the role of the High School and Beyond Plan (HSBP) in supporting mastery-based learning. The Work Group members believe…

Schools are experiencing unprecedented disruption, forcing educators to think differently about how they engage with their students and forcing changes to longstanding systems that have been established to deliver education. This presents an opportunity to not only discover ways to address education during the coronavirus pandemic, but also to…

The purpose of this Policy Impact Snapshot is to identify the major categories of career and technical education (CTE) currently available within our nation's secondary and postsecondary education systems and describe the existing research on whether these programs are achieving desired outcomes for students. This Policy Impact Snapshot describes…

Annually, the New Jersey Department of Education (NJDOE) collects, analyzes, and reports to the Governor and Legislature on disciplinary infractions and their consequences, as reported by school districts, to meet the requirements of the Public School Safety Law, N.J.S.A. 18A:17-46 through 48. This report includes statewide information on…

Softball is taught in many physical education programs throughout the United States. This article describes modifications that maximize learning outcomes and that address the National Standards and safety recommendations. The modifications focus on tasks and equipment, developmentally appropriate motor-skill acquisition, increasing number of…

The case captures leadership challenges related to recent legislation promoting parents' rights and the tensions that emerged from new mandates affecting the school's inclusive culture. The principal finds himself balancing the needs of parents, teachers, and students while staying true to his commitments and ethics. Challenges include growing…

The 2004-05 school year didn't start off well for the Sanger Unified School District. The district, located east of Fresno, had entered its first year of "program improvement"--a gentler way of saying that Sanger was among the 98 lowest-performing districts in the state based on success criteria in the No Child Left Behind law. The…

For the internal evaluator, the issue of trust can be one of the more difficult ethical matters to manage. An organization might choose to conduct an internal program evaluation for a variety of reasons, including capitalizing on the abilities of invested stakeholders to assess aspects of a program, building an institutional culture oriented…

The Detroit Healthy Youth Initiative is a 10-year partnership between the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) and Wayne State University (WSU) with the goal of improving the quality of school health and physical education programs throughout the city schools. Drawing on the experiences of WSU and DPS faculty, administrators, teachers, and project staff,…

In 2007, the physical education program at Sunnyside Middle School in Lafayette, Indiana, was in constant flux. Teacher turnover occurred annually, facilities were subpar, the curriculum was outdated, opportunities for professional development were rare, and most importantly, students lacked maximum movement opportunities in physical education. In…

A growing body of research shows that positive school climate is a key lever for students' academic and social development and success. This research digest shows how an alliance of California schools and districts, school climate experts, and state education agency personnel have teamed up to use school climate data to drive a continuous cycle of…

Harvard Family Research Project's Out-of-School Time (OST) Program Research and Evaluation Database and Bibliography provide accessible and timely information about research and evaluations involving OST programs and initiatives. This Research Update explores key themes emerging from 13 recent reports added to the OST Research and Evaluation…

In early November 2013, the authors started talking about visiting the Hurley School, a dual-language school in Boston, Massachusetts. The Hurley School had spent considerable time transitioning to the Common Core State Standards on literacy, but little time addressing the shifts in math. They worried that math classes were no longer rigorous…