This is the second in a series of reports that examines the role of coaches in facilitating school change. The report explains that as coaching, or external facilitation of school change, becomes a more widespread strategy for helping schools undergo comprehensive restructuring to create more professional collaborative cultures and to increase…

Turning Points is a New American Schools design for comprehensive middle school reform coordinated by the Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) in Boston Massachusetts. It focuses on creating a professional collaborative culture and using data-based inquiry to improve teaching and learning for all students. Turning Points seeks to create…

Literacy consultant Joan Groeber provides educators with a teacher-friendly, step-by-step guide for creating and using rubrics to assess a wide range of literacy skills. Groeber's approach helps ensure that students gain a clear understanding of teacher expectations and assume a greater responsibility for their own learning. Offering an overview…

With caseloads often exceeding 500 students, counselors cannot afford to spend countless hours on traditional approaches to individual problems. Solution-Focused Brief Counseling (SFBC) offers counselors an effective approach that leads to rapid, observable change in students. This guidebook combines step-by-step instructions with vivid case…

This Education Policy Brief provides readers with a broad overview of Response to Intervention (RTI). Response to Intervention refers to an integrated, schoolwide method of service delivery across general and special education that promotes successful school outcomes for all students. This brief first discusses the impetus behind RTI, which stems…

Between 1996 and 1998, a team of teacher-consultants affiliated with the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP), Georgia, used support from Project Outreach of the National Writing Project to develop a model for promoting teacher leadership within individual urban schools and for their writing project site as a whole. Their model is not a…

The high prevalence of kith and kin child care for infants and toddlers, coupled with research evidence suggesting cause for concern about quality in these settings, points to a critical need for policies and programs to support kith and kin caregivers in providing quality care. A number of state and local agencies are exploring strategies for…

To accomplish desired results and to support more effective funding decisions, program planning, and policies, First 5 Ventura County adopted a results-based accountability (RBA) framework in its April 2000 strategic plan. This RBA framework uses regular, periodic and strategic data collection and analysis to inform a process of continuous…

Project PASS (Personal, Academic, Social Successes) is a goal-setting model that capitalizes on students' self-esteem and behavior and creates individual accountability for learning. The program was developed for a group of 15 at-risk eighth grade students in a school in the heart of urban Chicago. As part of Project PASS, students, parents,…

One of the purposes of this study was to examine the differences between knowledge of pre-service physics teachers who experienced model-based teaching in pre-service education and those who did not. Moreover, it was aimed to determine pre-service physics teachers' perceptions of modelling. Posttest-only control group experimental design was used…

Making connections becomes increasingly important as students proceed through middle school and high school. This book shows ways of embedding connective processes in instruction in grades 9-12. Problems invite mathematical modeling, unify diverse content, call for different representations, and encourage students to look back at their work to…

Certain practices in volunteer development have proved successful to help organizations make the best use of their volunteers. Development should be a comprehensive, continuous process through which individuals can extend, update, and adapt their knowledge, skills, and abilities to enhance their performance and potential. A model for volunteer…

A pivotal part of Scotland's Childcare Strategy is the provision of out-of-school care (OSC). The Scottish Executive Education Department commissioned an assessment of the costs and benefits of OSC in Scotland. Despite methodological issues such as lack of longitudinal studies, the review of existing literature evidenced a range of economic…

As part of Louisiana's efforts to expand and improve the quality of its early childhood programs, a committee of educators from across the state collaborated to develop standards for programs serving 4-year-olds. This guide presents program standards to assist the ongoing development, evaluation, and improvement of early childhood center-based…

This chapter examines how integrating the study of motivation to learn with the issue of identity development during adolescence requires simultaneous attention to patterns of school functioning, peer relationships, and mental health at the level of the individual, and to patterns of developmental supports or risks at the level of the social…