Developed for school and district leaders, Family and Communication Engagement (FACE) departments, educators, and all departments charged with engaging families, this playbook offers evidence-based strategies to enhance family engagement in middle schools. It is a comprehensive resource for those seeking to implement broad-based improvements and…

To advance equity, districts and schools must serve the whole person. Equitable outcomes are more likely to result when whole-person initiatives are implemented within an aligned and coherent system. If educators at every level of the K-12 system--from the state level to the classroom--work in aligned and coherent ways to sustain the conditions…

This resource provides step-by-step guidance to teams who are developing, strengthening, or expanding a College Promise program. The Guidebook is organized into three sections that cover topics ranging from how to frame your College Promise program to evaluating and implementing it. Each section includes embedded tools and exercises to help you…

The NGSS Early Implementers Initiative was created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Many educational initiatives are funded for only a couple of years. This unique initiative spanned an extraordinary six…

Over the course of six years, a diverse group of school districts and charter management organizations in California ran a substantial experiment in implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in elementary and middle grades. WestEd led an extensive evaluation of that effort, the California K-8 NGSS Early Implementers Initiative,…

This 13th report in WestEd's evaluation of the K-8 Early Implementers Initiative for the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) provides an extensive response to the following question: What does NGSS science teaching look like in the classroom? The report first discusses Initiative teachers' experiences with four instructional practices that…

NGSS Early Implementers is a six-year initiative created to help eight California school districts and two charter management organizations, supported by WestEd's K-12 Alliance, implement the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Administrators need learning opportunities if they are to adequately understand the substantial shifts of the Next…

College Promise programs are thriving in California, and with the continued growth comes a need to understand the features of these diverse efforts and the perspectives of the communities in which they exist. In 2018, the James Irvine Foundation supported California College Promise Project (CCPP) at WestEd to study the College Promise landscape in…

This five-year evaluation examined the effectiveness of a promising middle-school mathematics intervention funded through an Investing in Innovation (i3) development grant. Evaluation objectives were to: (1) study the impact of an intervention aimed at increasing the academic achievement of students in Algebra I--a gate-keeping course--as measured…

States, school districts, and schools across the country are increasingly implementing multi-tier systems of support (MTSS) to improve outcomes for all students. Kansas is no exception. The Kansas MTSS is designed to improve outcomes for all students by instituting system-level change across the classroom, school, district, and state. Such…

"The Electric Company" ("TEC") television show won the hearts of children because it made learning fun. Thirty years later, the iconic show has returned with the goal of not only teaching literacy, but also numeracy (the ability to work with and understand numbers) and mathematics vocabulary in a fun, entertaining, and engaging…

This user-friendly tool for retaining quality teachers--especially those in special education--contains a framework for action that can be used to create a plan at the school or district level, or to strengthen existing plans. Target audiences include state and local administrators for general and special education, including superintendents,…