Climate change is contributing to the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events globally. Numerous Australian communities have been affected by severe bushfires, floods, and droughts over the past decades. In response to natural disasters, art therapists should focus on trauma healing, community resilience, while maintaining…

Student interventionists have been utilized as change agents in a variety of contexts to improve the academic, social, and communicative behaviors of target students. A strong literature base supports the use of peers in academic interventions such as peer tutoring, as well as in behavioral interventions such as peer-mediated Check-In/Check-Out,…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015, signaled a major shift in the roles of states and districts in supporting school improvement. Under ESSA, state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs) have more responsibility and flexibility in developing and implementing plans, informed by local context, to support the…

The completion agenda is the dominant theme in higher education policy in the United States today, and one of the primary strategies advocated in the agenda is performance funding in budgeting for public institutions. Illinois is one example of a state that has attempted to implement performance funding as a means of directing the behavior of…

This study examines the role of implicit theories of change in inhibiting STEM reform and identifies a range of approaches to help change agents alter their implicit beliefs in order to develop more explicit theories of change. Through observations and interviews, we focus on the experience of reform teams on 11 campuses that were involved in a…

One in six school-age Minnesotans has at least one immigrant parent and one in five Minnesotans under five years old is a child of immigrants. This trend is part of a significant shift in the state's racial and ethnic makeup over the past 25 years. This report looks at Minnesota's redesign of policies and practices to better support the education…

Volunteers from the International Reading Association (IRA) participated in the teacher education component of Macedonia's Secondary Education Activity, an initiative to reform vocational/technical education (VET), funded from 2004 to 2008 by USAID. Volunteers offered professional development to VET teachers using a trainer-of-trainers model,…

This article aims to review the historical development of continuing professional development programmes (CPDPs) for teachers, as well as the policies and objectives of such programmes in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) from the inception of these programmes until now. Styles of CPDPs that the Education Training Centres (ETCs) offer are…

This article presents the evaluation findings of an education policy initiative that involved the employment of facilitators to broker the policy and its implementation. An Australian state's education authority piloted the employment of physical activity facilitators to expedite the implementation of "Smart Moves" in schools, a…

This qualitative case study investigated the impact of Workforce Investment Act (WIA) funding on the providers and planners of programs for incumbent workers in one Midwest WIA region. It examines the collaboration and power conflicts that are part of planning and implementing this legislation for the stakeholders. The study applied Matland's…

This paper presents a study of the experiences of a group of teacher educators during the 2006-2007 academic year, when they participated in a project to try out and implement digital individual development planning (which in Swedish is digital "Individuella Utvecklings-Planer" or IUP) in a teacher education faculty at a Swedish…

College and career readiness has become a unifying principle for education reform leaders across the country. A majority of states have made it a top policy priority, with an increasing number of national foundations and education reform advocates supporting this work. To help state leaders build strategies for sustaining their education agendas…

Good work by "outsiders" requires more than the right attitude concerning school complexities on the inside. Outside change agents can use seven strategies: acknowledging values, problem-setting, short-circuiting the system, one-legged conferencing, text-making, curriculum-making, and observing with feedback. Includes 24 references. (MLH)

School improvement literature focuses on the early stages of the change process and neglects actions to ensure its permanence. This article reviews research on institutionalization and the management of change in schools and develops a model for managing performance dips. Change facilitators must create administrative support and understanding,…

Discusses internal and external change agents' roles in school improvement, drawing on England's Moving Schools project. Effective external agents or cadres work not just in the school, but in the classroom. Conceptual organizing, a whole-school viewpoint, commitment to action, and teacher development linkages are key to supporting cadres.…