At a moment when brawls are breaking out at school board meetings and state officials are increasingly issuing curricular mandates, it's possible that this text's central question is more important than ever: How is it that given good intentions and hard work among education professionals, things in schools can go so very wrong? As in the first…

Part B, Section 619 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) authorizes additional preschool formula grants to states that are eligible for grants under Section 611 of Part B. States are eligible if they make Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) available to all children ages 3-5 with disabilities. While not mandatory, all…

Last year, school leaders were faced with unprecedented challenges as they grappled with school closures, the shift to online and hybrid models of instruction, and supporting their communities with an increased awareness of the need for social justice reform. The COVID-19 pandemic and killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and…

The Native American Needs Assessment Action Plan is designed to assist educators and administrators in addressing the needs and areas of possible opportunity that have been identified through the annual Native American Needs Assessment conducted by the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. The Action Plan is organized around areas of need…

Through educational research over the last decade, effective practices have been identified for dealing with difficult and challenging behavior in schools. Still, in too many cases, the results of this research and the practices it suggests have not reached educators at the district or building level. The purpose of this booklet is to offer…

Schools have long wrestled with how best to deal with student and schooling problems. The COVID-19 pandemic and other recent events have increased the number of such problems. This pressing reality along with growing concerns about social injustice and increasing criticism of public education have heightened calls for changes in how schools play a…

This brief provides an overview of five strategies used for persistently underperforming schools that demand significant changes to how schools are organized. It draws upon published research, as well as the experiences of cities pursuing different types of improvement strategies. None of the five strategies offer a surefire way to improve…

This book will provide school personnel with functional information and the necessary academic tools to manage the instructional needs of children with auditory disorders -- either peripheral hearing loss or auditory processing disorders. Treatment strategies to help mitigate the detrimental effects of hearing disorders in the classroom are…

This action guide provides school leadership teams with a resource for integrating the social, emotional and academic needs of young people into the daily student experience, from the time a bus driver greets a student until the end of the day. It supports the school leader and her/his team in mapping out an approach for integrating the social,…

This special report -- informed by the Education Commission of the States' March 2018 School Improvement Thinkers Meeting -- guides state leaders toward a better understanding of how to improve lower-performing schools. This brief contains questions in four key areas to provide a road map for digging into school improvement systems and orienting…

The Native American Needs Assessment Action Plan is designed to assist educators and administrators in addressing the needs and areas of possible opportunity that have been identified through the annual Native American Needs Assessment conducted by the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction. The Action Plan is organized around areas of need…

This resource collection features a selection of Office for Civil Rights (OCR) guidance and resources that may be useful to elementary and secondary schools throughout the school year. For each resource, there is a brief description and a link to full information online. Each topic area includes a combination of specific and general resources.

Special education, for students ages 3 to 21, is guided by federal and state requirements. The federal requirements are referred to as The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The state requirements are referred to as the Ohio Operating Standards for the Education of Children with Disabilities (Ohio Operating Standards). The Ohio…

Research about education organizing has proliferated during the past decade, generating an increasingly rich collection of case studies, national surveys, and other analyses. Research for Action (RFA) has been among those engaged in this work and has drawn on its previous efforts - as well as the knowledge built by community organizing groups and…

In 2018 the Rhode Island (RI) Regulations Governing the Education of Children with Disabilities were revised to comply with the 2016 amendments to the RI Administrative Procedures Act. In this process members of the community requested that the RI Department of Education develop a companion document that maintained the relevant sections of the…