Even under ideal conditions, teaching is tough work. Facing unrelenting pressure from administrators and parents and caught in a race against time to improve student outcomes, educators can easily become discouraged (or worse, burn out completely) without a robust coaching system in place to support them. For more than 20 years, perfecting such a…

In the 1995 legislation establishing charter schools in the state of Louisiana, the Louisiana Legislature indicated their intention "that the best interests of at-risk pupils be the overriding consideration in implementing the provisions of this Chapter" (Charter School Demonstration Programs, 1997). Furthermore, the legislation required…

Monitoring, evaluation, and research activities generate important data, but they often fail to change policies or programs. In addition, local program staff and partners often feel disconnected from these activities, which undermines their ownership of data and results. To bridge the gaps between monitoring, evaluation, and research and to give…

A core feature of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) is the collection, summary, and use of data for iterative decision-making. The initial design of support and the adaptations that make behavior support match cultural, organizational, and personal needs require that a support team have functional information to guide…

This article describes the unique benefits of discourse analysis, a qualitative sociolinguistic research methodology, for evaluating financial literacy counseling. The methodology is especially promising for organizations that may lack the resources to implement "gold standard" large scale, randomized, experimental, or quasi-experimental…

The national education reform agenda has rapidly expanded to include attention to continuous improvement research in education. The purpose of this analysis is to propose a new approach to "developmental evaluation" aimed at building a foundation for continuous improvement in large-scale school improvement networks, on the argument that…

IES is the primary research, evaluation, and statistics arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Established through the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002 (ESRA), the Institute's mission is to expand fundamental knowledge and understanding of education and to provide education leaders and practitioners, parents and students, researchers, and…

This report highlights the critical role family literacy and learning play in breaking down barriers between different learning contexts and engaging hard-to-reach adults and children in education. This report was developed as part of a family learning project initiated by the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) in 2016. Based on the…

Advancing race equity and inclusion can sometimes seem daunting and often leaves many wondering how and where to start. One way to achieve social change in an organization is to incorporate race equity and inclusion at every stage of work. The seven steps in this guide provide a clear framework for undertaking this important work. This tool adds…

For international service-learning to thrive, it must document student learning outcomes that accrue to participants. The approaches to international service-learning assessment must be compelling to a variety of stakeholders. Recent large-scale projects in study abroad learning outcomes assessment--including the Georgia Learning Outcomes of…

In 2006 and 2007, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) awarded $478 million in grants from the Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) to support the development of innovative teacher compensation strategies. New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), together with five partners--Memphis City Schools (MCS), the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), Denver…

The Department has developed a Race to the Top program review process that not only addresses the Department's responsibilities for fiscal and programmatic oversight, but is designed to identify areas to differentiate support based on individual State needs, as well as certain topics where States can leverage work with each other and with experts…

The State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Massachusetts' Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Massachusetts' Year 1 accomplishments include: capacity building within its Department of Elementary and…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of North Carolina's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Delaware created new structures at the State level to support both State and LEA (local education…

This State-specific summary report serves as an assessment of Ohio's Year 1 Race to the Top implementation, highlighting successes and accomplishments, identifying challenges, and providing lessons learned from implementation to date. Prior to the first year of its Race to the Top grant, Ohio revised some Ohio Department of Education (ODE) job…