While there are many different types of education data, policymakers and education leaders often place heavy emphasis on data from large-scale quantitative measures, such as annual state assessments. But data from these sources alone do not provide a complete picture of learning and are often not well suited to informing improvements at the local…

Busy educators are often faced with a dilemma--staying up to date with evidence-based practices and initiatives that support their professional growth while combating a constant barrage of superficial ideas from other contexts. Continuous improvement approaches to change offer methods for testing new ideas and adapting them to local contexts. If…

History suggested that COVID's impacts would be severe, wide-ranging, long-lasting, and above all, deeply unequal. As the effects of COVID linger on, researchers have a crucial role to play in cataloging them. Even more important, by developing knowledge about exactly who is affected and how, researchers can provide evidence that points the way…

Despite a high primary school enrollment in India, the overall learning levels have been low, and the dropout level in secondary school and beyond has been high. One reason for low learning levels and high drop-out rates is the student's lack of motivation to learn in the classroom. We suggest that curiosity may be a useful tool to improve student…

State Quality Rating Improvement Systems (QRIS) can effectively support the improvement of school-age childcare programs by leveraging Program Quality Assessments (PQAs) alongside structured improvement planning and professional development. Real-world implementations in Arkansas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania underscore the impact and adaptability…

For at least two decades, several California schools have embraced a community schools model that marries schools and community organizations to seamlessly provide a variety of supports to students and families in communities with the highest needs. But when the pandemic hit, those needs multiplied. Members of the California State Board of…

This paper presents a summary of a three-year project funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) evaluating the Schools Partnership Programme (SPP). The SPP is a peer-led, collaborative school improvement model in England, developed by the Education Development Trust (EDT), where clusters of schools conduct peer reviews and support one…

Reading and literacy skills are essential to fostering a child's development and academic success. Research has consistently highlighted the importance of early literacy proficiency as a strong indicator of later academic achievement, cognitive ability, and social-emotional well-being (Espinosa, 2002; Gottlieb et al., 2022). Unfortunately, reading…

Many systems and institutions of post-secondary education narrowly focus on simply trying to balance budgets rather than strategic priorities that lead to transformative change. In doing so, the emphasis remains on preserving current business practices in higher education, which often recycles dysfunctional and low-performing programs and services…

Distributed leadership is one of the most influential and well-discussed ideas to emerge in the field of educational leadership. Prompted by the foundational and seminal work of Spillane et al. (2001) the idea of shared or 'stretched' leadership that incorporates both formal and informal leaders, has been of interest to researchers, policy-makers…

A dangerous trap exists for educators and education policy makers: the learning loss. This trap comes with a large amount of data and with sophisticated projection methods. It presents a stunningly grim picture for education and it invites educators and policy makers to make wrong decisions and invest in wrong things. The article identifies a…

With students, families, and the education systems that serve them still reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, a $3 billion state investment in community schools offers an opportunity for system transformation that can address urgent and persistent whole-child needs and their impact on teaching and learning. Although the possibilities…

Like many state education agencies, the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) recognized it needed more structure to parts of its school improvement approach. NDE leaders wanted to consider the work through an equity-focused lens, ensuring supports were effective for multilingual students, and create a process that would be replicable, scalable,…

Background: Professional Learning Networks (PLNs) of educators represent a promising approach to achieving continuous school improvement. At the same time, a range of studies in this area, including several systematic reviews and meta-analyses, report multiple conceptual and methodological challenges, or, at best, mixed results. Purpose and…

Faculty create thoughtful lectures and assignments designed to elicit learning, but it is only after assessment that we see whether students learned. This study demonstrates the value of a three-pronged approach to using assessment results to improve learning. First, review the literature on teaching and learning within the discipline. Second,…