Teacher preparation programs play an essential role in this nation's elementary and secondary education system, which relies on them to recruit, select, and prepare approximately 200,000 future teachers every year. Strong programs recruit, select, and prepare teachers who have or learn the skills and knowledge they need to be hired into teaching…

The teaching profession has long been structured around full-time classroom responsibilities that are defined by the location, timing, and schedule of the school day and a ubiquitous one-teacher-per-classroom model. In most districts, the only option for highly successful teachers to advance in the profession or serve more students is to leave the…

As schools and school districts find their funds being cut or eliminated, they are turning to various organizations for assistance to help in the teaching/learning process. One such organization is the university. Quite often these schools or districts not only lack the funds, but also lack the technical and resource capacities to implement the…

Why do some teachers choose to leave the profession within the first five years of service? Focusing on one group of 25 former teachers and a second group of 25 current teachers in the rural, North Central, Alabama, area, the researcher studied how the nationally known reasons for teacher attrition found in the literature review applied to this…

This report presents the findings from an external evaluation of Project COMPASS, an effort by Wake Technical Community College to redesign community college online courses to improve outcomes, particularly for students of color. The evaluation used a randomized controlled trial in which students were randomly assigned to course sections taught by…

States have been working to increase the rigor and effectiveness of career and technical education to both meet the needs of their students and to address the workforce needs of the state and the nation. This StateNote, while not exhaustive, highlights efforts in the states that appear to be "ahead of the curve" in state policy…

Former President George W. Bush finished his tenure without having won congressional renewal of his No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy. With President Barack Obama now at the helm, NCLB is up for debate. Brown Center Director Grover "Russ" Whitehurst examines Reading First, a key component of NCLB, that aims to ensure that all children…

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) seeks to foster a community that produces sustainable solutions in all facets of campus life: (1) teaching; (2) research; (3) service; and (4) administrative operations. The university strives to model the three tenets of sustainability (environmental preservation, economic prosperity, and social equity for…

Federal education officials last week pledged that the economic-stimulus program's $650 million innovation fund will reserve the largest grants for schools, districts, and nonprofit organizations that want to finance programs with proven track records and are ready to grow. In the U.S. Department of Education's first substantial preview of the…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the "Stimulus Act" and "Economic Recovery Act," was signed into law by President Obama on February 17, 2009. As a response to the economic downturn that Americans are all experiencing, the ARRA is an effort to jumpstart the economy, create or save millions of jobs, and make long-term…

This article presents a model of collaborative inquiry for groups of science teachers who want to systematically improve their practice through analyses of student work. The five-phase APEX[superscript ST] (Advancing High-Leverage Practices by Examining Student Thinking) model is appropriate for students of all achievement levels. It focuses on…

In this article, the author writes from the perspective of a community college research practitioner, an institutional researcher whose daily work is intended primarily to affect policies, procedures and understanding of student learning and institutional effectiveness. The audience for this work is composed of faculty, administrators, staff,…

When multiple education projects operate in an overlapping or rear-ended manner, it is always a challenge to separate unique project effects on schooling outcomes. Our analysis represents a first attempt to address this challenge. A three-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) was presented as a general analytical framework to separate program…

Accreditation in higher education institutions continues to be regarded as the seal of collegiate quality even while questions have been raised about its effectiveness and what the process accepts as evidence of improved student learning. As a result, many regional accrediting agencies are requiring higher education institutions to implement…

"Motivating Every Student in Literacy (Including the Highly Unmotivated!), Grades 3-6" provides an effective model for improving reading levels and increasing motivation. Under the guidance of Athans and Devine, classroom leaders develop their own Motivation Improvement Action Plans, where small-group instruction, end-of-unit assessments, and…