In the spring of 2020, the United States experienced a nationwide closure of schools, and all educators had to shift their instructional modality from in-person to distance learning without warning. The problem is the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited in-person learning due to state- issued stay-at-home orders. The purpose of this basic qualitative…

Building district capacity for implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in high need school districts is challenging. To better understand the level of support needed to successfully implement districtwide PBIS under challenging conditions, the National PBIS Center is conducting several model demonstrations of…

The problems faced by many small city school districts are often overshadowed by concerns for big city and rural school districts. We focus on some of the challenges faced by three small city school districts in Massachusetts with high percentages of students from low-income homes. Comparisons are made between these districts and three relatively…

The purpose of this Action Research study was to investigate and improve teacher retention at Southside Public Schools, an urban public school district in Massachusetts. Participants and data collected in Cycle 1 consisted of an interview with the school district's superintendent, a focus group that included Southside's director of human…

Teacher attrition is problematic in schools serving marginalized populations. Teacher attrition rates are 50% higher in Title I schools than in non-Title I schools (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017). Furthermore, attrition among teachers whose main teaching assignments are in mathematics and science is 70% higher in Title I schools as…

America spends $115,000 per-pupil on education, one of the highest in the world. Even with high funding being provided for the educational budget, standardized state assessment scores are not reflecting the aim for higher quality of education that NCLB is trying to accomplish. Teachers use an assortment of assessments to gauge student's mastery…

Research shows that students who experience discipline that removes them from the classroom are more likely to repeat a grade, drop out of school, and become involved in the juvenile justice system. This can result in decreased earning potential and added costs to society (lost tax revenue and incarceration). The Government Accountability Office…

We studied how six high-performing, high-poverty schools in one large Massachusetts city implemented the state's new teacher evaluation policy. The sample includes traditional, turnaround, restart, and charter schools, each of which had received the state's highest accountability rating. We sought to learn how these successful schools approached…

Nobody goes into teaching to get rich, but that's no excuse not to pay teachers as professionals. Compensation is one of the most important factors in determining who enters the teaching profession and how long they stay--yet 90 percent of all U.S. school districts pay teachers without any regard for their actual performance with students,…

The school field trip has a long history in American public education. For decades, students have piled into yellow buses to visit a variety of cultural institutions, including art, natural history, and science museums, as well as theaters, zoos, and historical sites. Schools gladly endured the expense and disruption of providing field trips…

William Taylor, 29, a third generation Washington, D.C. resident stands out for a number of reasons. For one, he is an African American man who taught math at an elementary school for many years. Taylor excelled in the role, so much so that he now coaches his fellow math teachers at Aiton Elementary School, which is located in a high-poverty…

It's hard to imagine two schools superficially more different from each other than Blackstone Elementary, with its labyrinthine 1970s layout, and Orchard Gardens K-8 School, which opened in 2003, with its modern skylights and cheery primary-color accents. But they were similar in the way that matters most in young lives: Both Boston schools were…

This report provides a new resource for understanding the state of urban public schools in the U.S. Geared specifically toward city leaders who want to evaluate how well traditional district and charter schools are serving all their city's children and how their schools compare to those in other cities, the report measures outcomes for all public…

Aside from effects on nearby property values, research is sparse on how foreclosures may generate negative externalities. Employing a unique dataset that matches individual student records from Boston Public Schools--including test scores, demographics, home address moves, and school changes--with real estate records indicating whether the student…

Many educational policy initiatives use instructional coaching to accomplish their goals. Yet we know little about the role of reading coaches in mediating the relationship between policy and teachers' classroom practice. In this article, we investigate the role of reading coaches in mediating the relationship between Reading First policy and…