The primary purpose of this guidebook is to support a learning community that promotes the growth, quality, and sustainability of Community Schools across Wisconsin. This document provides an overview of Community School models and supports, including: a list of the current districts implementing Community Schools in Wisconsin; information on how…

The higher education policy implementation landscape has substantially shaped postsecondary education opportunities for undocumented youth, who are already negatively affected by discriminatory public policies, and institutional agents, who are often unprepared to address their needs. Guided by Bressers's contextual interaction theory that…

This briefing paper explores Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) policies and practices that state early intervention (Part C) programs may consider implementing to meet the social-emotional and mental health needs of infants and toddlers in the context of relationships with their parents and other caregivers.

Background/Context: Early childhood education joined the standards movement in 2002 with the Good Start, Grow Smart initiative (Brown, 2007), with advocates arguing that standards were a tool for creating more continuity and coherence in PreK systems (Bowman, 2006; Kagan 2012). Critics posed concerns about a perceived poor fit between…

From 2016 through 2019, 10 states strengthened their career readiness systems through the New Skills for Youth initiative (NSFY), a $75 million national investment by JPMorgan Chase & Co. to enhance state efforts to increase the number of learners across the country who are prepared for success in both college and career. As part of this…

The opposing principles of local control and increased standardization are a prominent tension in the United States' education system. Since at least the early 1990s, this tension has taken shape around the accountability movement, defined by educational reforms that hold schools, teachers, and students accountable for performance on new…

Understanding how educational practitioners make sense of and subsequently implement policy has been an increasingly important objective of the K-12 research community. This study extends this research into higher education via an in-depth case study of an urban public 2-year technical college. Drawing on sensemaking theory and critical policy…

Postsecondary education and credentials are key to economic mobility for individuals and economic competitiveness for our nation. Although the economic return to credentials varies significantly by field of study, generally workers with higher levels of education have higher wages, work more hours, and suffer lower rates and shorter durations of…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

"Accelerating Opportunity" responds to the nation's growing need for improved pathways from Adult Basic Education (ABE) to credentials of value in the labor market. It builds on promising practices developed in "Breaking Through," an initiative of Jobs for the Future and the National Council for Workforce Education, and…

Over the past 10 years increasing numbers of charter schools have been considered a viable option for many students seeking to obtain a quality education. Public charter schools and their administrators and teachers are obligated to follow the principles enshrined in federal mandates, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement…

This study examines principal mentoring practices in Wisconsin. Particular attention is paid to practices deemed promising in the literature on mentoring for improving principals' capacity for instructional leadership. The implementation of Wisconsin's policy for teacher and administrator mentoring (PI 34) is also examined. Wisconsin's…

In this multi-method case study, the authors explore the success of school reform in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), whose school reform combines a portfolio strategy and a managed instruction approach. Portfolio strategy is a term used to describe an approach that decentralizes resources and decision-making to school sites--increasingly in…

This report on the SCALE Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) Case Studies line of work provides preliminary findings about SCALE activities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). This study focuses on the structural and behavioral dynamics influencing the implementation of the four core SCALE strategies for effecting change in…

Examines whether the Modern Red Schoolhouse, an expensive reform design, could be funded in high-, medium-, and low- spending school districts across Wisconsin. Most Wisconsin schools can afford MRS reform elements; less expensive strategies are also available. Findings may not apply to states with lower per-pupil fiscal investments. (Contains 26…