The Success Stories project collects submissions from organizations that highlight successful arts education programs. These stories demonstrate the benefits of arts education and promote continued collaboration and learning for individuals and organizations working toward student achievement and success. This is the first in a series of success…

This brief describes the relationship between placement stability and youth engagement in the Youth Transitions Partnership (YTP), a program developed and implemented by the Alameda County Social Services Agency (SSA) for 14- to 20-year-olds in foster care who have multiple risk factors for experiencing homelessness. The authors used program data…

The framework of a Professional Learning Community (PLC) was adopted and implemented in Guam schools to foster a system of collaborative practice to improve teaching and learning. The problem addressed in this study was how teacher isolation affected the implementation and effectiveness of PLCs. The purpose of this quantitative study was to…

The improvement of music teacher education programs is inevitably tied to improvement of the quality of music instruction in schools. As such, one of the essential avenues for improving educational programs is conducting regular program evaluations. Given the ever-evolving national standards for school music, along with the changing socio-cultural…

School discipline disproportionality has long been documented in educational research, primarily impacting Black/African American and non-White Hispanic/Latinx students. In response, federal policymakers have encouraged educators to change their disciplinary practice, emphasizing that more proactive support is critical to promoting students'…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation of the "Phonics First"® program within one district to inform district level curriculum team decisions and program planning moving forward. As a level 4 Directed State Support district, the studied district was looking for ways to close the achievement gap and raise overall…

Over the past five years, Albany State University (ASU) has reconstituted its Education Specialist Leadership Tier II Program to prepare school principals to work in some of the least served schools in southwest Georgia (and, as described below, outside of Georgia as well). Prior to the redesign of the program, ASU was struggling with a limited…

In 2020, the Administration for Children and Families' Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) established the Human Trafficking Youth Prevention Education (HTYPE) Demonstration Program. The purpose of the HTYPE Demonstration Program is to fund local educational agencies to partner with a nonprofit or nongovernmental organization to create,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend a theory of health promoting schools (Markham and Aveyard, 2003) that draws heavily upon Nussbaum's Aristotelian interpretation of good human functioning (Nussbaum, 1990). This theory of health promoting schools proposed that health is grounded in the meeting of identified fundamental human needs and…

The Hexagon Discussion and Analysis Tool helps organizations evaluate new and existing programs and practices. This tool is designed to be used by a team to ensure diverse perspectives are represented in a discussion of the six contextual fit and feasibility factors. Program indicators assess new or existing programs or practices that will be…

Virtual Reality Job Interview Training (VR-JIT) and Virtual Interview Training for Transition Age Youth (VIT-TAY) demonstrated initial effectiveness at increasing employment among transition-age youth with disabilities engaged in pre-employment transition services. We characterized activities and estimated the labor and non-labor costs required to…

Resettled youth often face many challenges while enrolled in schools, such as expectations to quickly assimilate and acquire English language and literacy skills or being positioned in deficit-oriented ways. In this article, we use qualitative methods to seek to understand how resettled youth positioned themselves as authors and use their writing…

This study characterized the patterns and predictors of pre-post changes in knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and intentions (KABBIs) among 641 youth who completed evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention programs. At follow-up, 64.0% of youth showed changes knowledge, communication, and attitudes; 22.5% showed changes in knowledge,…

Effective, engaging teacher collaboration contributes to continuous school improvement and overall student success. This formative, internal program evaluation used a combination of objectives-based and improvement-focused models to determine what worked well in mandated PLCs at MHS, what aspects of these PLCs needed improvement, and what…

The benefits of afterschool activity participation for youth development are well-documented. An interesting question dominating this field is whether there is a threshold at which point participating in too many activities (breadth) and spending too much time in those activities (intensity) is negatively associated with desirable outcomes. Using…