When a researcher tests an educational program, product, or policy in a randomized controlled trial and detects a significant effect on an outcome, the intervention is usually classified as something that "works." When expected effects are not found, there is seldom an orderly and transparent analysis of plausible reasons why.…

The restorative justice process utilizes various intervention strategies created by indigenous tribes throughout the world, as an alternative to procedural justice (Zehr, 2002). In modern education, restorative justice was incorporated into the public-school system, where it has evolved into a preemptive measure to combat punitive discipline…

Why, when so many educational interventions demonstrate positive impact in tightly controlled efficacy trials, are null results common in follow-up effectiveness trials? Using case studies from literacy, this article suggests that replication failure can surface hidden moderators--contextual differences between an efficacy and an effectiveness…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation and impacts of the Building Assets, Reducing Risks (BARR) model in its first year of implementation in 66 schools across the U.S. and to document scale-up progress during the Investing in Innovation (i3) grant period (2017-2021). The impact evaluation included 21,529 9th grade students…

Classroom activities aimed at changing students' identity-based motivation (IBM) improve student outcomes by helping students experience school as the path to their adult future identities and their difficulties along the way as signals of the importance of schoolwork. One way to scale these effects would be to have teachers deliver IBM…

Although high school graduation rates are rising--the national rate was 82 percent during the 2013/14 school year (U.S. Department of Education, 2015)--dropping out remains a persistent problem in the Midwest and nationally. Many schools now use early warning systems to identify students who are at risk of not graduating, with the goal of…

Reading is typically considered a survival skill in our technology- and literacy-bound culture. Individuals who struggle with learning to read are at significantly elevated risk for a number of negative outcomes, including school failure, under- and unemployment, and special education placement. Thus, those who do not learn to read fluently will…

School-based programmes developed to promote social and emotional well-being aims to reduce the risk of academic failure and other negative outcomes, such as antisocial behaviour and mental health problems. This article maps the British political trajectory from understanding the importance of social and emotional well-being, to delivering…

Recent federal education legislation has recognized the over-identification and overrepresentation of students in special education and mandated that schools use evidence-based teaching strategies and instructional interventions within the general education classroom before initiating a special education referral. Legislation also put greater…

Secondary school administrators are increasingly finding themselves in the position of implementing Response to Intervention (RTI). This system of providing progressively intensive levels of intervention for the purposes of preventing academic failure and identifying children with learning disability may be useful at the secondary level. However,…

This applied dissertation was designed to evaluate a Reading Recovery program at an alternative school in Florida. The Reading Recovery program was used as an intervention for improving students' reading skills and performances on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) that is given each year to students in Grades 7 and 8. The…

Although over 15 years have passed since Witt (1990) noted that no empirical evidence exists to support the contention that a collaborative approach to consultation leads to more positive outcomes than a hierarchical or expert driven approach, this issue generally remains unaddressed (Schulte & Osborne, 2003). While the literature documenting…

Procedures to help prevent academic failure are discussed: (1) peer tutoring; (2) the Adaptive Education Learning Model; (3) Direct Instruction and Behavior Analysis; (4) Strategy Training; and (5) other cognitive behavioral techniques and self-management. Potential barriers to implementing prevention programs are discussed. (SLD)