Citywide implementation of project-based learning highlights the benefits--and the challenges--of promoting exemplary practices across an entire out-of-school time (OST) network. In summer 2009, the City of Philadelphia and its intermediary, the Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), introduced project-based learning to a network of more…

We evaluated the role that social capital among teachers plays in affecting teacher pedagogy in the context of comprehensive school reform (CSR). CSR implementation was designed to change school- and classroom-level processes, including organization and governance, curriculum and instruction, professional development (PD), and parental…

A selected annotated bibliography on managing development projects, intended for rural development practitioners, highlights items that outline some pressing issues and concerns confronting those involved in rural development in general and rural project management in particular. A section of annotated entries lists 21 publications on project…

Ganado Primary School on the Navajo Reservation has formulated and implemented an attendance improvement plan which has provided encouraging results. Formulation and implementation of the attendance improvement plan were initiated after reviewing the 1980 attendance registers which indicated the average length of enrollment had been 169 days with…

Ganado Primary School located on the Navajo Reservation--in its attempt to decrease absenteeism--has formulated and implemented an attendance improvement plan which has provided encouraging results show positive implications for its adaptation into similar programing in other schools. (ERB)

Objective: The authors describe a faculty practice plan that assigns a monetary value to various educational and research activities. Methods: Four years experience in the implementation of the plan are reported. Results: During this four-year period, the total dollar value of grants increased 319.6% from $9,175,495 in 1998-99 to $38,762,499 in…

Communities of Practice offer state agency personnel a promising approach for engaging stakeholder groups in collaboratively solving complex and, often, persistent problems in special education. Communities of Practice can help state agency personnel drive strategy, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop members'…

This beginning teacher program is a combination of a support and training program for first-year teachers in 12 school districts in Kansas. Participation is required and the program features regular meetings with the building principal, a year-long, performance-based skill training program, and a set of performance tasks which ask the beginning…

In accordance with research into what makes schools effective, efforts were made to translate the findings into a school improvement project in the New York City Public Schools. The research isolated five characteristics of schools identified as effective (that is, as demonstrating for 3 years the ability to deliver basic school skills to the full…

Between 2001 and 2005, the state of Maine shifted the focus of its statewide high school improvement efforts to include an explicit focus on adolescent literacy. One trigger for that change in focus was a 5-school adolescent literacy initiative previously launched in a rural county under the federal Northeast and Islands Regional Educational…

Discusses the role of teacher achievement and recognition in job satisfaction, and describes a mini-grant incentive model that offers teachers opportunities and incentives for achievement and recognition through increased responsibilities and expanded opportunities for development. The application process, implementation phase, and evaluation…

Unaccompanied youth are young people who lack safe, stable housing and who are not in the care of a parent or guardian. They may have run away from home or been forced to leave by their parents. Unaccompanied youth live in a variety of temporary situations, including shelters, the homes of friends or relatives, cars, campgrounds, public parks,…

The report of the External Program Review Team on Teacher Education to the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education featured 23 recommendations for Oklahoma to become a leader in teacher education. The recommendations were grouped into five categories of concerns: program rigor, faculty resources, technology, interrelationships/leadership, and…

A common problem for Chinese teacher trainers is coping with a passive class with silent trainee learners, when trainees tend to be unresponsive and avoid interactions with the trainer. This is especially true when a trainer seeks interactions in the process of training, such as asking questions to the class as a whole or expecting at least one…

A quality improvement system (QIS) is an intentional effort to raise the quality of afterschool programming in an ongoing, organized fashion. There are a number of reasons the QIS is gaining popularity. The main reasons community leaders are drawn to improving quality is that they know that 1) higher quality programs will mean better experiences…