Federal Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) were revised in 2016 to strengthen and improve the quality of all Head Start (HS) programs. The problem addressed in this basic qualitative study is that teachers in a local urban HS program in the southwestern region of Virginia have decreased levels of job satisfaction and cannot support…

The Learning While Leading (LWL) professional development program motivates and further prepares administratively certified educators to become principals or assistant principals and offers continuous support to new principals during induction. The LWL program addresses a clear need for transitional support to motivate, fully prepare, and support…

The Race to the Top (RTTT) program incentivized states to use innovation for systemwide improvement of student outcomes, but little is known about how RTTT-funded innovation was sustained after the RTTT program ended. This mixed-methods study examined state and district approaches to sustaining an international innovation called "lesson…

In 2012, the United States Department of Education announced the Race to the Top-District grants. One joint award was made to two large educational cooperatives in the same state that together represented 111 mostly rural schools in 22 districts. One of the grant's identified four essential projects was the implementation of personalized learning.…

Driven by Race to the Top funding and quickly designed and deployed in 2010-2011, a new teacher evaluation policy in Tennessee altered principals' supervisory practices regarding their use of time for observation and reporting, their interaction with teachers, and the methods for giving teachers performance ratings. In addition, student test score…

Half of all infants and toddlers receive care in nonparental settings, such as centers and family child care (FCC) homes. On average, infants and toddlers spend more hours per week in care than preschoolers do. Yet infant-toddler care has been identified as lower quality than care for older children, suggesting that professional development (PD)…

There has been a sea change in teacher evaluation over the past eight years. Inspired in part by President Barack Obama's policies, schools have instituted teacher evaluation systems that include multiple measures of teacher impact. Model systems are aligned to systems of continuous improvement, helping teachers identify areas of weakness in their…

High quality instruction is essential to producing developmental gains for young children and can mitigate risk factors such as family poverty and low parental education. Even in programs with highly qualified teachers, teacher-child interactions often do not provide the level of instructional support that children need to be well-prepared for…

It has been three years since Race to the Top grant-winning states piloted new teacher evaluation systems and many of them have made considerable progress, yet according to media coverage and a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in April 2015, struggles remain and most grantees have asked to extend the timetables for…

This article presents faculty perceptions of the first month of iPad deployment in a national college system and a case study describing the integration of mobile learning devices in one college, interpreted within the framework of a SWOT analysis. We include a brief history of the implementation; description of the three-tier structure of…

Head Start, the largest federally funded early childhood education program in the United States, provides comprehensive services to low-income children and their families. These services historically have a whole child approach, fostering social-emotional well-being, physical and mental health, and cognitive and language development, as well as…

The human brain develops rapidly in the first five years of life. High-quality early learning experiences can have a profound and lasting positive effect on young children during these years, setting the stage for success in kindergarten and beyond. This is especially true for young children with high needs who are from low-income families; who…

Major federal education initiatives, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, have highlighted the importance of teacher quality in improving student achievement. The federal government has committed significant funding and resources to professional development programs for teachers through Title II of the Act and other initiatives. There…

The intention of this study was to examine three factors regarding the implementation of the Response to Intervention (RtI) model. First, the study discovered what professional development opportunities were afforded to administrators and certified faculty to support the implementation of the RtI model within schools that make AYP and those that…

Instructional strategies aimed at improving achievement of low performing student subgroups in need of support were selected by the District Improvement Advisory Committee, so that WCPSS could exit District Improvement status. Impact of each initiative, which often included teacher training and coaching is examined in this implementation report.…