Individuals with low incomes often struggle to advance in the labor market, yet at the same time, some employers report difficulty finding workers with the necessary skills. WorkAdvance is a workforce development model that seeks to address the needs of both of these groups through its "dual customer" approach. The model offers training…

"The demographics of families in poverty around the globe may be diverse, but parents' dreams for their children are similar everywhere: good health, a good education, economic stability, and a better future." This new report from the Bernard van Leer Foundation and Ascend at The Aspen Institute develops a "two generation"…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) puts responsibility for improving student outcomes back where some say it has always belonged--under states' purview. No longer will prescriptive federal requirements dictate how states should identify, support, and turn around the lowest-performing schools and districts. Instead, states are empowered to craft…

New York City is one of several large school districts around the country that are actively working to promote "computer science for all" students. Launched in 2015, NYC's CS4All initiative aims to ensure that all public school students learn computer science--especially female, Black, and Latinx students, who are starkly…

The Philadelphia Education Research Consortium--or PERC--was launched in August 2014 as an innovative partnership designed to provide research and analyses on some of the city's most pressing education issues. This partnership was forged among the School District of Philadelphia, Philadelphia's charter school sector, and Research for Action (RFA).…

The role of the public school principal has expanded dramatically in recent decades. The expanded role means they are now significant multipliers of effective teaching and have a real opportunity to affect student achievement. Most states have spent recent years working to improve teacher effectiveness, recognizing its importance in improving…

"Strategic Inquiry" is an innovative model for promoting teacher collaboration around identifying specific "learning gaps" that keep struggling students from succeeding. Gaps may include anything from the proper use of commas and conjunctions to concepts such as "slope" in math. The authors argue that addressing these…

Results of a survey conducted by the Office for Civil Rights show that 6 million public school students (13%) are not attending school regularly. Chronic absenteeism--defined as missing more than 10% of school for any reason--has been negatively linked to many key academic outcomes. Evidence shows that students who exit chronic absentee status can…

Low-income neighborhoods no longer experience the levels of community wide disinvestment that they did through the 1990s, but their residents still face significant poverty, risk of displacement, and limited economic mobility. For this reason, Change Capital Fund (CCF), a New York City donor collaborative, formed to invest in sophisticated…

The portfolio strategy is a change strategy for public education in a district or metropolitan area. It is founded on the idea of re-missioning government agencies from rigid bureaucratic entities that mostly manage compliance requirements and interest group politics to a new role: overseeing performance and a diverse range of school choices…

Pressures are increasing on educational policy and practice to use research to guide improvement. Recently there have been concerted efforts to forge new and different kinds of relationships between researchers and practitioners. School districts across the country are developing a new kind of partnership with researchers. These research-practice…

Researchers have found that middle school students undergo developmental changes that require unique educational structures and support. As a result, experts have suggested a number of specific strategies for organizing middle schools in order to best meet students' needs. This Information Capsule summarizes middle school redesign initiatives that…

The 14 Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA)-funded youth employment programs to which the Academy for Educational Development (AED) has delivered technical assistance for the past 5 years illustrate several important conditions for effective programming and "best practices" in the field of youth employment and training. Four of the JTPA…

The Alternative Youth Employment Strategies (AYES) Project began as one of the demonstration projects funded under the Youth Employment and Demonstration Project Act in 1980. The program, which features three training models, is targeted toward high-risk, disadvantaged youth, especially minority youths from urban areas who had prior involvement…

This working paper examines why Project Giant Step, a well-received policy initiative for universal preschool for 4-year-olds in New York City, was discontinued after overcoming many of the challenges it faced. Project Giant Step forced collaboration between large public agencies differing in their institutional structures, funding sources, and…