Elementary charter schools increasingly serve students who are at-risk for reading challenges, giving them a critical role in establishing literacy for young children. This article examines the complexities of starting early childhood literacy programs in charter schools. Specifically, the first year of K-3 literacy programs in a new and a…

Many studies point to potential unintended consequences of accountability systems such as when schools narrow their teaching to fixate on tested subjects. As a result, some states and districts in the USA have complemented the federal test-based accountability system with additional measures of educational practices to hold schools accountable on…

By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. There are many and varying updates to these systems, and some of them have been made to meet conditions for a state's federal "Race to the Top" (RTT) grant. Other updates have been made to meet conditions for a state's…

A quality improvement system (QIS) is an intentional effort to raise the quality of afterschool programming in an ongoing, organized fashion. There are a number of reasons the QIS is gaining popularity. The main reasons community leaders are drawn to improving quality is that they know that 1) higher quality programs will mean better experiences…

In fall of 2011 the University at Buffalo Libraries circulation department undertook Six Sigma training for the purpose of overhauling its student scheduling process. The department was able to mitigate significant staffing budgetary reductions and resource reallocations and to overcome the unique challenges of scheduling student labor for a…

High-quality out-of-school-time (OST) programs have a positive effect on youth development, but many cities have found it difficult to address the challenges of expanding and improving the quality of programs offered to underserved and high-need students. In response, The Wallace Foundation sponsored an initiative to help five cities increase…

High-quality out-of-school-time (OST) programs have a positive effect on youth development, but many cities have found it difficult to address the challenges of expanding and improving the quality of programs offered to underserved and high-need students. In response, The Wallace Foundation sponsored an initiative to help five cities increase…

This report examines the "Wave One" school districts in New York State as they expanded into the second year of Universal Prekindergarten (UPK). Through surveys with district UPK coordinators and analysis of final reports submitted to the state education department, information was gathered about the implementation, programming, and…

In response to the problems caused by categorical funding for services to children and families, the National Commission on Children recommended a series of changes in the organization, administration, and implementation of programs at all levels of government, to encourage a more collaborative and comprehensive service delivery system, including…

In this essay, the author reviews "Education Reform in New York City: Ambitious Change in the Nation's Most Complex School System," by Jennifer A. O'Day, Catherine S. Bitter, and Louis Gomez. The book under review explores a larger set of issues, and some time has passed. But many of the issues studied remain relevant and the consistent…

The Developmental Strategies for College Readiness and Success Resource Guide was produced by the Education Commission of the States and the Southern Regional Education Board for the "Countdown to 2015: Developmental Strategies to Advance Readiness in the Common Core Era" convening held April 21-23, 2014 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The…

This report examines the practices of vocational education programs that serve limited English-proficient (LEP) students without the benefit of federal bilingual vocational training funds. Visits were made to seven areas of the United States with large numbers of LEP persons: South Florida, Southern California, Connecticut, Metropolitan New York,…

The Comprehensive School Improvement Program (CSIP), which was mandated by New York State to address issues of school reform, was a disappointment both in the way the State conceived the program and in the way it was implemented. CSIP was designed to encourage cooperative planning among teachers, principals, parents, and other school staff to…

Two counselors, five teachers, four administrators, and seven 10th- and 11th-grade students at three New York schools offering pilot agricultural tech prep programs as part of the Agri Tech Prep 2000 (ATP 2000) project were interviewed. The interviews focused on the participants' understanding of and attitudes toward tech prep, the status of the…

This paper describes the implementation of the 6Rs writing approach into a summer literacy program offered to poor, urban children in New York City. Taking a cue from Rosenblatt (2004) the authors believe that readers and writers add onto their understandings and extensions of language as they engage in and transact with new readings, new writing…