Improving student learning in our country's highest need schools is and endeavor that is challenging, complicated, and imperative. The major school reform efforts of the last few decades have largely failed to influence student achievement or to impact the ever-widening achievement or opportunity gap. These disappointing results have led…

These are the appendixes for the report "Children's Knowledge and Skills at Kindergarten Entry in Illinois: Results from the First Statewide Administration of the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey." At least half of states administer or are developing kindergarten entry assessments. In fall 2017 the Illinois State Board of…

The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI), focuses on the issue of low college readiness among Black and Latino male students--a problem that has persisted in New York City (NYC) even as high school graduation rates have risen. ESI is providing funding and professional development to 40 NYC high schools, aimed at helping them improve outcomes,…

This First Look report provides selected findings from all five waves of the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS) along with data tables and methodological information. The BTLS follows a sample of public elementary and secondary school teachers who participated in the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), and whose first year of…

The purpose of this study evaluates the work completed in the "Jefferson County Public Schools" (JCPS) project, "Making Time for What Matters Most", aiming to improve student achievement, narrow achievement gaps, strengthen students' college readiness skills, and increase the percentages of students who graduate and go on to…

The Office of Shared Accountability (OSA) conducted an evaluation of the implementation of the second year (2011-2012) of the Science, Technology, and Engineering Leadership Program (STELP) in Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS). Funding for STELP, including the evaluation study, is provided by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical…

"The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Challenges for School Leadership" (2012) was conducted by Harris Interactive and is the twenty-ninth in a series sponsored annually by MetLife since 1984 to give voice to those closest to the classroom. This report examines the views of teachers and principals on the responsibilities and challenges…

The report is organized to provide information on the school-level implementation of alternate assessments for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Following the Introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 describes the study design and methods, including the development of the teacher survey and data collection procedures and analyses.…

"The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Teachers, Parents and the Economy" (2011) examines the teaching profession and parent-school engagement at a time when there has been a prolonged economic downturn. The survey explores how teachers, parents and schools are working together to promote student learning and healthy development in the…

In the 2007-2008 school year, the New York City Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers jointly implemented the Schoolwide Performance Bonus Program in a random sample of the city's high-needs public schools. The program lasted for three school years, and its broad objective was to improve student performance through…

This report, the second of three reports examining Supplemental Education Services (SES) within WCPSS, focused on the implementation of SES, and the degree to which short-term and intermediate goals were met. In 2009-10, the SES program was largely implemented with fidelity, with some areas needing refinement related to communication and…

This report measures trends in performance among urban schools receiving federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) awards as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). The Council of the Great City Schools aims to document how member districts of the Council of the Great City Schools implemented SIG and specifically what…

Long and frequent deployments, with short dwell times in between, have placed stresses on Army children and families already challenged by frequent moves and parental absences. RAND Arroyo Center was asked by the Army to examine the effects of parental deployments on children's academic performance as well as their emotional and behavioral…

This interim progress report provides a look at Turnaround Arts schools in their first year, including: (1) a summary of the evaluation design and research questions; (2) a preliminary description of strategies used to introduce the arts in Turnaround Arts schools; and (3) a summary of school reform indicators and student achievement data at…

The National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was contracted to undertake a three-year external evaluation of the Artful Learning program, an arts-based school improvement model developed from the work and philosophy of the late composer Leonard Bernstein.…