The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reverses a trend toward centralization of education policy and instead provides greater authority to the states. This study explores states' interpretation and early implementation of ESSA's equity-related provisions. Using a qualitative case study approach, we find wide variation in the design and…

A four-day school week (4dsw) is becoming more common, especially in areas across the western United States. States with large rural areas are spearheading this change. For example, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have more than 500 districts using a 4dsw. The transition to the 4dsw and the debate over…

Boosting literacy among school-age children remains a national priority. Nearly one third of students in the United States have not developed the foundational reading skills needed to succeed academically, with students living in poverty, students with disabilities, and English learners especially at risk. Starting in 2010, Congress invested more…

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has been studying the four-day school week since 2015. Since then, the phenomenon of the four-day school week has spread into non-rural areas and interest appears to be growing. Given these apparent changes, the author wanted to know more about recent trends in the initiative. As districts continue…

The four-day school week (4dsw) is growing in popularity, especially in rural areas across the western United States. RAND Corporation researchers addressed knowledge gaps about the 4dsw by conducting a large-scale study of the implementation and outcomes of the 4dsw that involved the collection of original data in numerous districts across Idaho,…

This report presents a multi-year study of how states are implementing their state college- and career-readiness standards. In this report, the Southern Regional Education Board's (SREB's) Benchmarking State Implementation of College- and Career-Readiness Standards project studied state efforts in 2014-15 and 2015-16 to foster effective…

Discusses three essential components of successful cooperative education programs (commitment, pacing, and support) and offers practical suggestions to teachers, such as arranging groups efficiently, determining group size, deciding how long groups should stay together, and deciding when group learning is appropriate. Teaching social skills is…

This publication is part of a series of tools and resources on financing and sustaining youth programming. These tools and resources are intended to help policymakers, program developers, and community leaders develop innovative strategies for implementing, financing, and sustaining effective programs and policies. This strategy brief presents a…

This study used an ecological perspective to examine the development and implementation of Hopeful Horizons, a program designed to serve the educational needs of homeless children in Morgan County, Oklahoma. Information was collected through journals, observations, key informant interviews, surveys of administrators and staff, and psychological…

This study on barriers to online staff development for classroom teachers was conducted as part of the planning activities of a delivery models project designed to develop guidelines for implementing large-scale online staff development programs. The study involved engaging 54 general and special educators in several professional roles from nine…

This paper reports on a multiple case study of building administrators in a suburban school district in Oklahoma which implemented a unitary system of inclusion of students with disabilities in age-appropriate regular classrooms. The study focused particularly on how administrators developed shared meanings during the change process. Data were…

The first annual administration of Oklahoma's School Testing Program is described, and the results for 1985-86 are summarized. The Metropolitan Achievement Tests were administered in grades 3, 7, and 10. Extensive appendices, which make up the bulk of this document, present: (1) suggested learner outcomes for the subjects tested--reading, language…

The report of the External Program Review Team on Teacher Education to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education featured 23 recommendations for Oklahoma to become a leader in teacher education. The recommendations were grouped into five categories of concerns: program rigor, faculty resources, technology, interrelationships/leadership, and…

This report describes Oklahoma's response to requirements for the education of homeless children and youth of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. The report includes an introduction and an overview of Subtitle B of the McKinney Act and is divided into four sections. Section I, "Functions of the SDE Office," describes…

This study describes how some school districts have implemented full motion, two-way interactive video in rural small schools and communities. A prototype and guidelines for future implementation are presented. Researchers studied 14 school districts in the Oklahoma Panhandle and eastern New Mexico and three sites in Texas where the technology has…