High-quality teaching is the most significant school-related factor in helping students make significant gains in learning or achievement. Students who have effective teachers year after year routinely make more progress than other students. This is why every child must experience great teaching every day. For this to occur, teachers must have…

"Economic competitiveness" is at the top of national, regional and global political and economic agendas. Several countries in all regions of the world have established policies and institutions devoted to economic competitiveness, including in developing and transition countries. This leads to the question of how to define national economic…

The poor performance of middle school students in reading was addressed by examining the effects of an 8-week reading intervention program for middle school students in one school district in the southeastern United States. Two research questions were developed: (a) Is there a significant difference in the level of the students' reading skills,…

The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) kicked off 2010 with its legislative campaign, "Our Race to the Top." This campaign resulted in the passage of a slate of progressive education reform bills. During the summer months, it ran the "Vote for Ed" campaign, which put the issue of Connecticut's struggling public…

A historical case study from a 6-8 middle school in the coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania was conducted to examine the extent of teacher collaboration before and after the implementation of the teaming concept as well as the construction of a new middle school. The study was triangulated through the use of multiple data points including…

This report presents the deliberations of the Southeast Regional Advisory Committee (RAC), one of 10 RACs established by the U.S. Department of Education, identifying educational challenges across the six states in the region: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. Committee deliberations took place May 23,…

Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education (CARE) is a professional development program designed to reduce stress and improve teachers' performance. Two pilot studies examined program feasibility and attractiveness and preliminary evidence of efficacy. Study 1 involved educators from a high-poverty urban setting (n = 31). Study 2 involved…

Data-based decision making has been the mantra of the school reform movement since the late 1980s, but California does not yet have an effective system for collecting and using vital school information. California has taken a number of steps to address this shortcoming. These include the Public School Accountability Act of 1999 and Senate bills…

This issue brief examines the role of central office administrators in the reinvention process and what research and experience matters for expanding student learning. The brief includes examples from central office reinvention efforts currently planned or under way in Atlanta Public Schools, New York City Public Schools, and Oakland Unified…

Response to Intervention (RtI) came into the national forefront in the late 1990s as an alternate approach for identifying students with specific learning disabilities. In brief, RtI assumes that a broad system of early intervention and support is in place, one possible component of which is evaluating a student for suspected learning…

A number of activities are progressing in the Improving Teacher Quality (ITQ) program, the federally funded program that the Commission administers to provide professional development to California educators. This program is part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and continues the work that began as the Eisenhower Teacher…

Promising approaches in both policy and practice have emerged that should serve as beacons to guide professionals as they renew their determination to ensure fairness for all races and ethnicities in child serving systems. Indeed, when those systems are equitably treating children of color, then all children will benefit. The Center for Juvenile…

This article asks whether a school improvement programme in three provinces in Canada could have any implications for schools in England. Based on experience in a failing school that "turned around", a key feature of the programme was its emphasis on developing respectful social relationships at the same time as strengthening the…

The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine (UMMSM) has developed and implemented a competency-based undergraduate medical education (UME) curriculum that targets 61 learning objectives for three geriattic syndromes: dementia, falls, and delirium. This curriculum redesign changed the educational focus from what is taught to what is learned.…

This study was designed to enhance early childhood teachers' efforts to prepare young children for school. Thus, the first objective was to determine if teachers receiving comprehensive professional development (i.e., PD) would show gains in language and literacy instructional practices than teachers randomized to the control condition. Objective…