This article describes a project initiated to address the challenges of providing high-quality professional development to teachers in rural schools. Spread over the vast northwest corner of Colorado, where it takes over two hours to drive from one end of the region to the other, the Northwest Colorado Board of Cooperative Educational Services (NW…

In this study, we examined the enactment of formative assessment by administrator-selected master teachers in large, urban, public school districts in three regions of the United States. Furthermore, this study also included an investigation of the perceptions and frequency of use for all teachers within the same districts to gather a snapshot of…

The purpose of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of teacher induction in the state of Colorado. The guiding question for the study was "What components do Colorado school districts include as part of their beginning teacher induction?" The study examined the implementation of nine teacher induction components: orientation,…

Randomized experiments are often considered the strongest designs to study the impact of educational interventions. Perhaps the most prevalent class of designs used in large scale education experiments is the cluster randomized design in which entire schools are assigned to treatments. In cluster randomized trials (CRTs) that assign schools to…

Making robust and reliable information about schools accessible is one of the most powerful ways to foster engagement and promote informed decisions that will shape our communities. Though education data is frequently collected and aggregated at the state level, data is rarely synthesized across cities. This report provides comparable information…

In the era of No Child Left Behind, principals are increasingly held accountable for student performance. But are teacher labor agreements giving them enough flexibility to manage effectively? This study answers this question and others. It examines how much flexibility school leaders enjoy on key dimensions of management in America's fifty…

This document examines Colorado's size factor, which is intended to compensate for differences in per-pupil costs that are attributable to economies of scale; the formula provides additional money based on each district's enrollment. The report is organized by the following three areas: (1) background on Colorado's size factor, including a…

Information about enrollment, graduation, and other characteristics of Colorado schools was collected from the state's public school districts. In fall 1994, there were 640,521 students in the state's public schools, an increase of 15,459 (2.5%) over the previous year. Enrollment in Colorado schools has risen steadily since 1983 in both elementary…

Seven tables and two bar graphs present data concerning pupil membership in Colorado public school districts as of fall 1990. The tables include: state trends in pupil membership from fall 1986 through fall 1990; summary of selected school district data (number of schools, staff, students, pupil/teacher ratios, and dropout rate); fall membership…

Ten tables, four graphs, and summary discussions of salient statistics present pertinent information on dropout and high school graduation rates for Colorado public schools for the 1989-90 school year. Tabulated data, along with illustrative figures, indicate: (1) graduation rates by ethnic/racial group, gender, and size of school district; and…

Information collected from the public school districts of Colorado was used to prepare the tables of this report and the accompanying introduction, which summarizes trends in pupil membership. In the fall of 1992, there were 612,635 students in Colorado public schools. This was the third year of substantial increase in enrollment, and was the…

This publication provides descriptive information about the 100 largest school districts in the United States. Almost one in every four public school students in this nation is served by one of these large districts. They are distinguished from the average district by characteristics, in addition to sheer size, such as pupil-teacher ratios, high…