This report is prepared in compliance with HB 1661 Sec 104(2)(k), which requires the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF, or the Department) Office of Innovation, Alignment, and Accountability (OIAA) to submit to the Governor and the appropriate policy and appropriation committees of the Legislature: (1) A review of the current…

To what extent school improvement processes can be initiated and sustained from the outside has been a relevant question for policy-makers seeking to increase quality in education. Since 2008, the Chilean Government is strongly promoting the use of external technical support (ETS) services to support school improvement processes, as part of the…

Disciplines and professions each have their own methods of inquiry. This article outlines the commonalities as well as the differences and describes the relationship between the disciplines and the professions. The emphasis is on consulting because this is the profession with which we are concerned. There are three different approaches in…

Eight school districts in Rhode Island formed the East Bay Professional Learning Community to launch a joint effort to develop a culture of assessment literacy through ongoing professional learning focused on team-specific action plans tightly aligned to school, district, and state initiatives. To accomplish this, the districts pooled their…

At least 5,000 public schools have failed to meet their academic achievement targets for at least five consecutive years. The underlying causes of such failure are usually a combination of weak leadership, inadequate skill levels among teachers, and insufficient high-quality teaching materials. In 2009, the National Governors Association Center…

This presentation will answer the following research questions: (1) What was the intended implementation of the training and coaching component of Foundations of Learning (FOL)?; (2) To what extent was the training and consultation implemented as intended?; and (3) How did the combined training and coaching model utilized in the FOL project…

This study seeks to improve the contributions of performance consultants, instructional design consultants, and training consultants by explaining the effect that several variables have on trust as a mediator to relationship commitment within the context of the client-consultant relationship. The participants were 228 college students from two…

Few researchers support the belief that a school superintendent can drive improvements in student achievement. The Science and Mathematics Achievement Required for Tomorrow (SMART) Consortium was formed in northeast Ohio in 1998 with the belief that superintendents can have a measurable effect on student learning. The goal of this collaboration…

This document summarizes comments from 539 individuals on a literacy framework for Alberta, provided during the Alberta Literacy Forum held in Edmonton from April 14 to 16, 2008. The Forum was Alberta's contribution to the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) Pan-Canadian Interactive Literacy Forum, which involved all of Canada's…

In 2003, Terrence Martell, a finance professor at the City University of New York's Baruch College, encountered a classroom of 80 seniors who could navigate the complex intricacies of the futures markets and commodities trading. But when he asked them to write a report explaining to a commodity pool operator why he or she should retain the student…

National and international legislation has increasingly placed a duty on professionals to consult with young people about matters affecting their lives. Consequently, conducting consultation exercises with young people in order to improve the quality of services available is becoming established practice in many areas. Following on from previous…

Districts across the country face significant demands to strengthen student learning districtwide, and many are turning to intermediary organizations to help them build their capacity for such demanding, large-scale work. However, how these "learning-support intermediary organizations" assist with these capacity-building efforts is little…

While most K-12 technology leaders appreciate that technology refresh--the periodic replacement of an organization's technology--is more complex than shopping for appliances, they do not necessarily have the tools to create a sustainable and comprehensive plan to upgrade their assets. Having a solid tech refresh plan helps ensure that teachers and…

Any college English teacher who seriously seeks to bridge the academic and corporate learning communities must learn from rather than laugh at the industrial mindset. Mediating between composition theorists' process-oriented pedagogies and the type of linear writing instruction the corporate mind values is essential in the corporate classroom. The…

A personal approach to instructional development that uses teaching consultants is described and illustrated with anecdotes from the first year of one such service at a large midwestern university. This individualized approach emphasizes the particular needs, interests, and limitations of each teacher-client on a case-by-case basis. (JMD)