The ability to significantly increase and sustain gains in early literacy for students with disabilities and a desire to bridge the gap between compliance and results-driven accountability (RDA) led Washington State to innovate a solution. This state spotlight will focus on Washington's improvement strategy to address this early literacy challenge…

The purpose of this presentation is to describe some of the activities of a partnership forged between NYU researchers and senior leaders in NYC that was intended to provide research infrastructure and capacity-building solutions while also addressing jointly identified research questions about the "Pre-K for All" (PKA) program. The…

School absenteeism and truancy confront educators on a daily basis. While public school districts in the U.S. experience daily rates of absenteeism, in the Los Angeles Unified school District (LAUSD), over 26,000 students miss school each day, totaling over 130,500 student absences each week. Regardless of whether these absences are excused (e.g.,…

Although response to intervention (RTI) has been widely discussed in education literature and is increasingly being implemented in schools throughout the U.S., few studies provide empirical evidence of improved school-wide student outcomes. Presented here are data and an effect size analysis of school-wide student reading gains in five elementary…

This paper presents eight practical guidelines that teachers can use to make core instruction more systematic and explicit for students with or at-risk for mathematics disabilities. In the paper, we use the notion of explicit and systematic instruction as a foundation for intensifying core math instruction. Explicit and systematic core instruction…

The study examined the efficacy of an early intervention program to improve children's sequential time perception through virtual versus pictorial training in arranging episodes of temporal scripts. The researchers examined 65 deaf and hard of hearing children ages 4-7 years who were divided into two groups: (a) virtual environments technological…

Continuing professional development (CPD) for teachers must be situated within the context of the practice of teachers and be relevant to their teaching and learning needs. A CPD project was conducted in a Hong Kong kindergarten class. For five years prior to the CPD project, the class had used a mixed curriculum of project approach topics and…

Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

At the state and local level, many school systems, districts and early childhood networks have developed approaches and programs to support children's transition to school. These programs often address school readiness. There are many definitions of school readiness. Some refer to the skills and attributes of individual children, defining it as…

Louisiana has emerged as one of the most fascinating states in the nation for education reform. The state's creative response to rebuilding the New Orleans education system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina is now considered a potential model for reformers across the nation. Governor Bobby Jindal has carried the reforms further in pushing for…

We present the results of an evaluation of the implementation and short-term effects of "Zippy's Friends," a school-based 24-week mental health promotion program to teach children coping skills. The evaluation was conducted in Denmark (322 children in 17 first grade classes) and Lithuania (314 children in 16 kindergartens classes) with…

This first annual report on the "Condition of Education in Ohio 2004" provides in-depth data about the students who are served by Ohio's elementary and secondary educational system and how well they are performing. This report provides educators, policymakers and researchers with a comprehensive picture of Ohio's kindergarten through…

The initiation of the educational records and reports study by the Office of Education in 1951 marked a turning point in the Federal State teamwork approach toward providing a basis for complete, accurate, and comparable educational information. In cooperation with State education agencies and professional groups, three major handbooks of standard…