Universal Free Application for Financial Student Aid (FAFSA) policies are being implemented in states as a way to eliminate financial barriers to college enrollment and completion for underrepresented student groups. High school counselors play a critical role in helping students complete this graduation requirement. Texas adopted a universal…

Parent engagement is one approach to decrease the opportunity gap for Black, American Indian, and all children of color. This report from the field describes the use of the World Café participatory approach to support parent engagement in five early childhood, culturally embedded Montessori programs. Serving the Whole Child (SWC) is a…

Background: The Health-Promoting School (HPS) framework offers a comprehensive approach to promoting health in schools. Aragon's HPS network is a local organisation which has identified the need for closer cooperation between the education and health sectors as the main challenge facing its programme. Objectives: Previous studies from countries…

University personnel tend to view "helicopter" parents as problematic. This article presents an alternative view in which these highly engaged parents can instead be utilized productively. The authors describe and assess the fidelity of a novel program in which involved parents were effectively leveraged to mitigate student…

This evaluation report presents a baseline description of outcomes for the 2017-2018 school year, the first year of GEAR UP Austin implementation in AISD. Specifically, the report describes program implementation, student participation in GEAR UP Austin, and baseline student academic and college preparation outcomes. [For the executive summary,…

The four case examples presented in this brief are drawn from the Gardner Center's substantial experience conducting rigorous research in research-practice partnerships. The first case describes a partnership approach that enhances a school district's capacity to use integrated longitudinal data to tackle persistent problems of practice and…

Experts Bernhardt and Hébert's latest book demonstrates strategies to ensure your entire staff works together to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate a schoolwide prevention system with integrity and fidelity. Each step in this important resource is designed to help administrators, teachers, and other educators improve the learning of every…

This brief is part of a series that shares findings from a research collaboration between the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University and Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) focused on understanding implementation of the community school model in the district. This brief highlights findings related to…

The examination of the effects of administrative strategies on student achievement on the American College Test (ACT) was designed with the specific intent to improve student scores. The study allowed the researcher the opportunity to determine if interventions from administration had an impact on student achievement. The researcher had the unique…

In 2010, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) launched an initiative to transform all district schools into full service community schools. The community school design provides integrated supports to students and fosters a school climate conducive to academic, social, and emotional learning. Interventions span in-school and out-of-school time,…

The federal Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, project strives to equalize low-income students' access to higher education by increasing their participation in rigorous coursework, providing expanded opportunities for low-income students and parents to learn about postsecondary educational opportunities…

A reference work that presents a chronology focusing on special education, its development, and the important issues that both positively and negatively affect the field. Updated through current events, this second edition provides an excellent introduction to special education in all of its practical aspects--how it developed, its curriculum,…

If early childhood systems are to be effective at the population level then they must be able to provide family-centered care to all the racial, ethnic and cultural groups that they serve. Despite major policy driven and technological advances in healthcare, health disparities across different races and ethnicities persist. For example, the infant…