Research largely agrees on the importance of building and sustaining a collaborative school culture. However, it is less clear how school leaders should address a balkanized culture and repair harm following staff conflict. This becomes even more challenging when the harm that has been caused is rooted in racial tensions. Restorative Justice has…

Sixty-eight percent of fourth-grade public school students in the United States performed below the National Assessment of Educational Progress proficient level on the 2022 reading assessment, yet Massachusetts fourth-grade students demonstrated better reading outcomes. The problem addressed through this study was a lack of knowledge regarding the…

Academic leaders across the country--including several New England institutions--are now strategizing how to ensure students learn to navigate and manage diversity to spur progress. Diversity has always been a feature of the global landscape. Communities include women and men as well as people of different ages, ability statuses, socioeconomic…

As a consulting archivist, the author always thinking about the "backstory" of a place, how an institution's legacy is cultivated and preserved, and how all of the stuff a school collects over time can reveal the culture of the place. School archives are by far a favorite "genre" of archive for the author, primarily because she…

The purpose of this retrospective case study was to examine the implementation of turnaround practices in an underperforming urban elementary school. The research was guided by the overarching question: What are the lessons that can be learned from one turnaround school in Massachusetts, United States that could be shared with other urban…

Research in education, economics, and psychology suggests that teachers contribute in a variety of ways to the learning environment. They form relationships with students and help inculcate effective learning habits (Battistich et al., 1997; Davis, 2003; Thomas & Oldfather, 1997). Teaching practices mediate students' feelings of belonging and…

Throughout history, and continuing today, learners of color, low-income learners, female learners and learners with disabilities have been historically tracked into terminal vocational programs leading to jobs with uncertain promise of economic growth and prosperity. As a result, some communities do not view CTE [Career Technical Education] as a…

This study examined how intentional change decisions impacted the organizational culture of a newly constructed and reconfigured elementary school in Central Massachusetts. District administration enacted seven intentional change decisions during the project to influence the culture of the new school. Semi-structured interviews were held with nine…

An achievement gap is defined as a significant difference in academic performance between two groups. Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) data indicate that, in Crestland Public School District (pseudonym), there is a clear achievement gap in mathematics between students with disabilities and those without disabilities,…

There are many concerns related to students with emotional disturbance (ED) as they struggle in both academic and social domains (Little, Lane, Harris, Graham, Story & Sandmel, 2010; Nelson, Benner, Lane & Smith, 2004). There has been a strong emphasis on leadership in recent educational research and with such problems surrounding students…

This is the third and last paper in a series published by the National Alliance in partnership with Public Impact, highlighting the experiences of school leaders in charter schools across the country. While the impact school leaders have on student performance has been well documented, there has been little attention to how leaders' experiences…

This publication outlines the fundamental principles and process of Strategic School Design. Through years of research and practice around school resource use, we have found that high-performing, high-growth schools are responding to the changing context in education by using people, time, technology, and money in ways that look significantly…

Over the past three decades, much of the conversation about LGBTQ students in schools has centered on safety--anti-bullying policies, the "safe space" of gay-straight alliances, and "safe zones" marked by rainbow-colored stickers on classroom doors. In this article, Michael Sadowski argues that it's time to move beyond safety…

In May 2017, the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) College Access and Success community embarked on a project to compile shared challenges and lessons learned as a resource for fellow i3 College Access and Success grantees, the larger community of i3 grantees, and the broader field of college access. Through this project, the authors discovered…

Despite largely mixed reports about the impact of School Improvement Grants (SIGs) on school improvement nationwide, Massachusetts has experienced proven success with these grants, termed School Redesign Grants (SRGs) in Massachusetts, as evidenced by comparative interrupted time series analyses, which show that SRGs have a significant impact on…