Although Missouri has had a Career Ladder program for teachers since 1987, very little research has been carried out to measure the program's effects and what has been studied has not been comprehensive. This paper examines the program's effect on student achievement across the state, using longitudinal data on district math and reading scores for…

There is strong consensus in California and in the country around the notions of equal opportunity for all children, and giving kids a chance of having it better than their parents. The reality in California is that most families lack the means and resources to provide their children with the basic building blocks of a productive life in the 21st…

In 2010, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the Kindergarten Readiness Act into law, which changed the kindergarten entry age so that children must turn 5 by September instead of December to enroll. The new grade level was put into place to promote school readiness for California's youngest learners. It also established a new grade…

The use of accommodations for both instruction and assessment continues to be of great importance for students with disabilities. The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the state of the research on testing accommodations, as well as to identify promising areas of research likely to contribute to understanding of current and emerging…

In 2002, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched Children's Futures, a multiyear community-change initiative to improve the well-being of children in Trenton, New Jersey, through a broad range of activities and services, from parenting programs to efforts to improve health and childcare. This report examines programmatic achievements and…

The three Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) schools: East Garner International Baccalaureate Magnet Middle School (EGMMS), Garner International Baccalaureate Magnet High School (GMHS), and Southeast Raleigh Leadership and Technology Magnet High School (SRMHS) have shown progress on MSAP performance measures during the 3rd year of the grant.…

The purpose of this report is to provide descriptive data regarding the test scores of Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) students in grades 4, 8 and 10 in reading, math and science, as reported to the School Choice Demonstration Project 2009-2010. The tables, graphs, and histograms presented in this report provide a snapshot of these…

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) initiated the Growth Model Pilot Project (GMPP) in November 2005 with the goal of approving up to ten states to incorporate growth models in school adequate yearly progress (AYP) determinations under the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA"). After extensive reviews, nine states…

The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation in 2007 requiring that the State Board of Education produce an assessment on the effectiveness of teacher training programs. The law requires that the report includes data on the performance of each program's graduates in the following areas: placement and retention rates, Praxis II results, and…

Kern County Children and Families Commission (First 5 Kern) is funded by the Proposition 10 ballot initiative to support services for children prenatal to age five in California. The state revenue comes from an extra 50-cent tax on tobacco products, and is distributed according to the proportion of live births in each county. Following a…

To assess the raised expectations of college and career readiness for all students, a group of American Diploma Project (ADP) Network states formed the ADP Assessment Consortium in 2005. The Consortium created Algebra I and II end-of-course exams, based in large part on Achieve's ADP mathematics benchmarks, which would provide an honest assessment…

Character education programs are school-based programs that have as one of their objectives promoting the character development of students. This report systematically examines the outcomes that were measured in evaluations of a delimited set of character education programs and the research tools used for measuring the targeted outcomes. The…

This report synthesizes what research says works in improving teacher skills and knowledge, what nations that outperform the United States in education are doing, and provides an analysis of newly available data from the federal Schools and Staffing Survey and other sources to indicate where the nation stands in building the capacity of educators…

This publication presents information about the destinations of apprentices and trainees approximately nine months after leaving their training. The findings relate to apprentices and trainees who completed their training (completers) between October and December 2007, or who cancelled or withdrew from an apprenticeship or traineeship and have not…

Every year 1.3 million U.S. high school students drop out of school with one quarter of female students failing to graduate on time. Female dropouts are more likely to be unemployed, to earn less when they are employed, to become pregnant before the age of 20, to become obese, to smoke, and to drink more heavily than their male counterparts. This…