Text Steps was a project piloted by Ascendium Education Group in 2015 and expanded to 13 school districts in Wisconsin between 2018 and 2020. Its goal was to combat summer melt through a texting program. Summer melt, in which college-intending high school students are unable to enroll in the fall for any number of reasons, is a well-documented…

Since 2002, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) has administered the federally-funded Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Center (21st CCLC) grant program, also known as Title IV, Part B, of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The purpose of the program is to create community learning centers that provide students…

High schools hold great potential as contexts within which educators implement evidence-based practices shown to change post-school outcomes for youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Unfortunately, educators feel unprepared to use transition and disability-focused evidence-based practices. Coaching, as an essential feature of effective…

Mental health challenges for youth continue to be a growing concern. Youth-serving organizations have the potential to play a significant role in recognizing the signs and symptoms of mental health challenges in youth. The Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA) training course is widely used to equip adults working with youth with skills to support…

Promoting the Readiness of Minors in Supplemental Security Income (PROMISE), a study of 13,444 randomly assigned youth and their families, includes six model demonstration projects and a technical assistance center funded through the U.S. Department of Education and a national evaluation of the model demonstration projects funded through the…

Many states and communities have invested in public early childhood education programs to improve children's readiness to enter school and narrow achievement gaps in later grades. This study asked whether and how Wisconsin's universal state-funded prekindergarten program, Wisconsin 4K, has improved student achievement and helped to reduce the…

Many factors impact an adolescent's willingness to appropriately use health-care services and intent to begin the health-care transition process. Published literature continues to show that the way adolescents experience and utilize health-care services is ineffective and has long-term impacts on individuals and systems. Building upon the success…

With the increasing use of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) nationally, several states have developed systems to recognize exemplar schools that are implementing PBIS with fidelity. These systems serve the dual purpose of identifying model PBIS schools for other schools to emulate while also reinforcing schools' effective PBIS…

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…

The traditional model of undergraduate research is less effective for engaging students who have little or no previous exposure to research, are unfamiliar with available research opportunities, or face financial or time constraints that prevent them from engaging in co- or extracurricular activities. Given today's changing student demographics,…

This article documents a collaborative effort between university teacher educators and an urban school district in Wisconsin to address acute teacher shortages in bilingual education. The effort took shape as a Grow-Your-Own program based on the teacher residency model. Several innovations were required in program design and implementation to…

Bridge-to-college programs aim to help people complete high school and enroll in postsecondary education, two milestones that increase access to economic opportunity. These programs help students obtain their high school credentials while encouraging postsecondary transition and success. Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC) in Green Bay,…

Since 2010, the Institute for Personalized Learning (I4PL), a division of Cooperative Educational Service Agency (CESA) 1, has been collaborating with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to inform the state's work with the Innovation Lab Network (ILN) managed by the Council of Chief State School Officers. ILN is a network of states that…

Developed by the National Writing Project (NWP), the College, Career, and Community Writers Program (C3WP) seeks to improve students' argument writing by building teachers' understanding of and skill in teaching source-based argument writing. The program features intensive professional development, skill-based instructional resources, and…

This brief is one in a five-part series in which the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) documents insights from their efforts to understand how educators and researchers can build relationships that support a shared action research agenda around social and emotional learning (SEL). CASEL has developed three theories…