In their transition to college, students often struggle to identify and make connections between the main arguments, evidence, and empirical findings of articles from academic journals commonly assigned on political science syllabi. Which active learning techniques are most effective for teaching students to recognize and evaluate social science…

The purpose of this brief is to support stakeholders in their efforts to influence how states use the mandatory 7 percent Title I school improvement set-aside in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)--an allocation that could total more than $5 billion nationwide over the next five years. First, the authors provide an overview of the ESSA's school…

In public education, procurement reform has been all but ignored in policy discussions and procurement policies have remained virtually untouched. But the high price of ignoring procurement is becoming clear to people trying to reform education on the ground. Often involving long, cumbersome processes and risk-averse central office cultures,…

As postsecondary credentials have become increasingly important to accessing higher-quality employment, a growing number of education and workforce programs are implementing "career pathways" approaches to help both youth and adults prepare for further education and better jobs. In recent years, the Manpower Demonstration Research…

While the ascendancy of market behaviours in public research universities is well documented, the extent to which universities have transformed themselves into industry-like organisations has been called into question. So to what extent are universities displaying transformation in their core values? The concept of institutional logics, with its…

Utilizing "assemblage," a notion associated with Actor-Network Theory (ANT), we explore what discourses of transparency can, and cannot, accomplish in a network of education reform that includes schools, government agencies, and community organizations. Drawing on data collected between July 2011 and March 2013 in an…

The social sector's hottest "impact investing" product--the social impact bond (SIB)--has generated a range of reactions, from excitement to angst. An SIB uses private funds to pay for a social, educational, or health program, and the government repays investors (plus a return) only if the program achieves prespecified results. The…

Policy makers and researchers are intrigued with but also frequently frustrated by each other. Although these differences are understandable and predictable, it is clear that research on a variety of educational issues has been both influential and valuable in the development of policy and practice. There is much to suggest that researchers and…

In school districts across the nation, diverse student groups have been experiencing significant gains in reading performance after using READ 180. This compendium of READ 180 research contains 40 studies. The studies take place in a variety of settings in school districts across the country from 1999 to 2012. Summarized are correlational and…

What does an effective classroom look and sound like? What does it mean to have students engaged in learning? What is high-quality instruction? To answer these questions, the Greece Central School District in New York created a common language around teaching and learning as a way to support student achievement. The district developed a five-year…

For the 12 years that Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York City, the Big Apple was home to the nation's largest experiment in implementing the business model of education reform. The numbers of public school closings and new charter schools soared, while the high school student assignment system was overhauled to be driven by choice. By the…

Ichino and Moretti (2009) find that menstruation may contribute to gender gaps in absenteeism and earnings, based on evidence that absences of young female Italian bank employees follow a 28-day cycle. We find this evidence is not robust to the correction of coding errors or small changes in specification, and we find no evidence of increased…

Since 2004, the staff of the Know Your Schools~for NY Kids project has been conducting studies to examine what marks the difference between high- and average-performing schools. No matter what the level of schooling, the two groups of schools differ in how they use evidence to make decisions. In general, high-performing schools' approaches to…

Evidence-based programs (EBPs) are used in many health promotion efforts to ensure that the intended positive behavioral and health outcomes will be achieved. However, because EBPs are developed and tested in research settings, the contextual elements of real world implementation play an important role in their successful delivery in communities.…

This dissertation presents a variationist sociolinguistic study of the variable placement of subject personal pronouns before or after verbs in Spanish in New York City (e.g. "ella canta"; "canta ella", both "she sings"). It pursues a line of inquiry that partially replicates recent work by Otheguy & Zentella…