The Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) joined hands in 2005 to enhance dramatically implementation of the "High Schools That Work" ("HSTW") improvement design in the state. Between 2005 and 2010, nearly 50 high schools in five cohorts joined the Texas Enhanced "HSTW" Network…

Online professional development (OPD) for teachers is an increasingly popular and viable alternative to face-to-face professional development. While OPD can be effective, little is known about OPD's design and implementation features that maximize its impact. Using data from a large-scale OPD initiative, this correlational study (N = 1231)…

Educators face significant changes today that affect their daily work lives. Chief among those changes is the national expectation that every student will graduate from high school, college and career ready. Common core state standards adopted in 46 states, as well as college- and career-ready standards established in other states, define what…

Many educational administrators in Georgia continue to struggle with low student academic achievement and low high school graduation rates. DuFour's professional learning community (PLC) theory suggests a positive relationship between levels of PLC implementation and academic achievement and between levels of PLC implementation and graduation…

Expanding faculty buy-in to retention efforts may be improved through training and opportunities for assessment. Materials created for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) faculty based on the scholarly literature may dispel the view held by some that student attrition is beneficial to STEM disciplines and may expand an…

Teacher training and teacher quality are an important part of the education system, therefore there is a need for new training programs for teachers to gain new knowledge and skills and to support their professional development. In recent years, new programs have been developed to offer knowledge and experience to teachers, and different methods…

To better understand educators' views of social and emotional learning, the Education Week Research Center invited users of edweek.org--"Education Week'"s flagship website--to participate in an online survey in April 2015. A total of 709 people participated, with 562 deemed qualified based on self-identification as a K-12 teacher or…

Despite years of implementing standards-based accountability systems, many teachers today lack the necessary preparation to develop standards-based instructional strategies and to inform decisions utilizing student assessments. The eMINTS ("Enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies") National Center at the…

This monograph explores the ways in which large-scale school reform efforts play out in American Indian/Alaska Native communities and schools, starting from a historical and cultural perspective, and focusing on the translation of research into concrete steps leading to American Indian/Alaska Native student academic success and personal well-being.

It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a community of educators to improve a school--a community that includes administrators and teachers in different, but equally important, roles. A district's changes can only show results once their improvements reach the classroom. At the same time, teachers need support from their districts to…

In response to concerns that children are physically inactive, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee developed school-based implementation strategies centered on the components of a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program (CSPAP), composed of the physical education program, physical activity during the school day, staff…

Research indicates that the practice of grade-level retention may have negative effects on students; nevertheless it is often used in practice for students who fail to meet academic standards. In contrast to retention, response to intervention (RtI) is a sound practice that is based on a preventive framework and utilizes differentiated instruction…

The National Science Foundation-sponsored report "Fostering Learning in the Networked World" called for "a common, open platform to support communities of developers and learners in ways that enable both to take advantage of advances in the learning sciences." We review research on science inquiry learning environments (ILEs)…

Community colleges play a vital role in higher education, enrolling more than one in every three postsecondary students. While the market share of these institutions has grown over the past 50 years, students' success rates remain low. Consequently, community college stakeholders are searching with mounting urgency for strategies that increase…

In 2010, the Alexandria City Council of Virginia created the Children, Youth and Families Collaborative Commission (CYFCC, or the Commission) with the support of the Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS). Establishing the Commission was a groundbreaking step toward addressing the needs of Alexandria's children in a more holistic manner. The…