Research illustrates that student affairs are critical in decreasing inequity on college campuses (Schuh, 2010). The ever-growing complexities of students' lives and their struggles, when enrolled in college, further illustrates the need for student affairs professionals to provide support outside of the classroom (McClellan & Stringer, 2016).…

Students with disabilities consistently underperform on academic achievement tests. In part, this is due to teachers being underprepared to provide the evidence-based instruction needed to help students with disabilities succeed. Historically, professional development (PD) has been provided to educators yielding disappointing results. In this…

In 2021, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) made a monumental move to require postsecondary institutions to evaluate and document their actions to ensure fairness in admissions, an inclusive learning environment, and equitable student outcomes. Around the same time, a team comprising educational measurement experts, diversity…

As U.S. school leaders anticipate the end of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds and contemplate possible budget shortfalls, they will have to make hard choices about how best to leverage limited resources to improve student outcomes. With the stakes high, lawmakers and experts urge school system leaders to rely on research and…

Underserved schools often have fewer resources and less capacity to rigorously implement improvement strategies. As a result, the districts and schools that most need support programs are often least likely to adopt and implement them successfully--a phenomenon that we call the "needs paradox." To address the needs paradox, we created…

This book is an authoritative examination of summer learning loss, featuring original contributions by scholars and practitioners at the forefront of the movement to understand--and stem--the "summer slide." The contributors provide an up-to-date account of what research has to say about summer learning loss, the conditions in low-income…

This article suggests that many of the 16-year-olds who don't achieve a C or better in GCSE English may have had parents who didn't recognise the value of talking to them from the moment they were born. It argues that a bringing together of health visitors, Sure Start centres and primary schools could help lift many children out of the cultural…

Leading Charlotte foundations formed a funding collaborative to support a five-year district turnaround initiative to dramatically improve educational outcomes for students in the West Charlotte High School corridor, one of the city's lowest-performing feeder zones. The "Project L.I.F.T." initiative involves four areas of education…

In 2013, with a 30% state budget cut after the Great Recession, many of the 450,000 California State University (CSU) students across the 23-campus system were unable to enroll in courses they needed to move closer to graduation; there was a lack of available course sections. In addition to a reduced number of seats available for students, 30% to…

Since the publication of the initial report of the League's Commission on the Future (COTF), there have been many reports written and the California Community Colleges have taken many steps to improve student success and completion. However, there is still much to do. This paper will provide a brief assessment of where we are--in relation to…

The academic achievement gap between African Americans and their White counterparts has been an issue that has been discussed and dissected for several decades. In 2010, the Schott foundation released a report on Black males in school. It was reported that for the 2007-08 school year, there was only a 47% high school graduation rate for Black…

In this article, the authors consider the power and limitations of responsiveness-to-intervention (RTI) for reducing the need for ongoing and intensive services for the segment of the school population traditionally identified as having a learning disability in mathematics. To assess the robustness of RTI, the authors describe four studies with…

California Postsecondary Education Commission's (CPEC's) Improving Teacher Quality State Grants Program (ITQ) awards $8 million annually to support university-based teacher professional development projects. The program is funded by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. CPEC awards these grant funds through a competitive process involving…

It is hard to overestimate the significance of the master planning process. The process is one of the most salient strategies that the Maryland State Department of Education utilizes for improving student achievement and closing the achievement gap. Until recently, many local school systems (LSSs) treated planning as a local endeavor that merely…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of the District of Columbia's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. The Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) manages the District of Columbia…