Check & Connect was created in a five year period from 1990 to 1995. The original manual, entitled "Keeping Kids in School: Using Check & Connect for Dropout Prevention" and written by David Evelo, Mary Sinclair, Christine Hurley, Sandra Christenson, and Martha Thurlow, was published in 1996 (ED398701). This newly revised Check…

This study was designed to determine the degree of use, level of client satisfaction of professional development and educational services, and to identify suggestions for improving services. Results from a mixed methodology approach indicated moderate to high levels of satisfaction in two program areas and moderate to high levels of…

Mathematics classroom coaching is used across the United States as a means for improving instruction, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning. The job assignments of coaches can vary widely across schools and districts. Regardless of the various forms that coaching can take, there is the consistent expectation that a coach's…

For a quarter century, Kansas State University's College of Education has supported a Professional Development School (PDS) model involving professional collaboration with selected public school systems across Kansas. In that time, this relationship has proved to be an instrumental vehicle for educational change. The state of Kansas' adoption and…

The goal of this study was to assess the effectiveness of an intervention--Quality English and Science Teaching 2--designed to help English language learners (ELLs) and their English proficient classmates develop academic language in science, as required by the Common Core State Standards. The intervention consisted of supplementary instructional…

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD) have academic deficits that affect their success in school. However, there are few research studies investigating what strategies work best for this population, especially in the area of writing. One promising intervention to support the writing skills of students with and at risk for E/BD is…

This article presents the Achieving Success Everyday (ASE) group counseling model, which is designed to help school counselors integrate students' academic and personal-social development into their group work. We first describe this group model in detail and then offer one case example of a middle school counselor using the ASE model to conduct a…

This study seeks to answer the following question: Are impacts on Head Start classroom quality associated with impacts of Head Start on children's learning and development? This study employs a variety of descriptive and quasi-experimental methods to explore the role of classroom quality as a mediator or mechanism of Head Start impacts. This…

Despite questions about validity and reliability, the use of value-added estimation methods has moved beyond academic research into state accountability systems for teachers, schools, and teacher preparation programs (TPPs). Prior studies of value-added measurement for TPPs test the validity of researcher-designed models and find that measuring…

Since the announcement in 1999 of a plan to tie teachers' salary increases to student achievement by Denver Public Schools, there has been a flood of nationwide policy activity around teacher compensation. This paper examines pay plans in Denver, Toledo, Minneapolis, and New York City, offering a snapshot of the changing landscape of teacher…

Research on student achievement indicates the U.S. K-12 education system is not adequately preparing American students to compete in the 21st century global economy in the areas of science and mathematics. Congress has asked the scientific entities of the federal government to help increase K-12 science learning by creating standards-based…

Because policymakers have a direct impact on schools, teachers, and therefore students, this study examined the discourse of policymakers in relation to their views on "quality" teaching. Findings from the study conclude the cultural models and discourses widely varied among policymakers. Their views were based on an idiosyncratic…

Instructional designers are increasingly considering how to include students as participants in the design of instructional technologies. This study provides a lens into participatory design with students by examining how students conceptualized learning applications in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) by designing paper…

Despite significant investment in school one-to-one device programs, little is known about which aspects of program implementation work and why. Through a comparison of two implementation models, adopter-diffusion and saturation, and using existing data from the One Laptop per Child Australia laptop program, we explored how factors of…

Principals are traditionally the instructional leaders of a school. However, instructional coaching moves the emphasis from principals to instructional coaches by charging instructional coaches with improving the effectiveness of teachers who are critical to ensuring the successful education of a student. This research analyzed the leadership…