Standardized assessments long have played a role in public education. For much of that time, they have been faulted as too time-consuming, too restrictive, and too removed from real teaching and learning. The shift to new standards and assessments turns the page on this. Illinois put in place the new Illinois Learning Standards to make clear what…

The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled educational communities across the world into emergency remote models of instruction. This study documented the perceptions of 11 teachers from the State of Illinois regarding the quality of online instruction in their schools and their unexpected challenges from March of 2019-2020 academic year. Three points of…

This research examines how public school principals in eight U.S. states perceive their teacher evaluation systems, which are based on Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching (FfT). States were selected to represent high, middle, and low scorers in the annual "Education Week" "Quality Counts" report (Education Week, 2016).…

Exceptional management skills are crucial to success in educational environments. As school leaders, principals are expected to effectively supervise the school system while facing a multitude of issues and demands. "Multidimensional Perspectives on Principal Leadership Effectiveness" combines best practices and the latest approaches in…

Given the many changes in our students and their study and research practices, libraries are finding it necessary to seek new ways to reach these students. The Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign created a new model to do so. Librarian's Office Hours are a hybrid of reference and instructional services that…

As the incomes of affluent and poor families have diverged over the past three decades, so too has the educational performance of their children. But how exactly do the forces of rising inequality affect the educational attainment and life chances of low-income children? In "Whither Opportunity?" a distinguished team of economists,…