School improvement activities have commonly been treated as objects of study, constituting "research on" school improvement rather than "design of" school improvement. The key elements in a school improvement effort design involve particularizing for the instant situation the operational referents for the terms: school,…

This article discusses the kinds of instructional activities that young children need to develop basic language and literacy skills based on recent research and program evaluations. This includes approaches to develop alphabetic understanding, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and oral language. Activities and materials from the Pre-kindergarten…

Health screenings conducted during Special Olympics competitions and games have consistently shown that a significant number of athletes with intellectual disabilities (IDs) were overweight or obese, and surveys have indicated that athletes need more fitness training than they receive from their sport practices. In 2002, Special Olympics initiated…

This paper discusses (a) the role of cognitive and noncognitive ability in shaping adult outcomes, (b) the early emergence of differentials in abilities between children of advantaged families and children of disadvantaged families, (c) the role of families in creating these abilities, (d) adverse trends in American families, and (e) the…

The history of performance pay programs and policies in Texas provides a backdrop to the state's Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program and the Districts Awards for Teacher Excellence (DATE) program. The TEEG and DATE programs are state-funded and provide grants to schools and districts to implement locally-designed performance pay plans.…

This paper explores the following questions related to family literacy programs: How is family literacy linked with family literacy programs? What are the theoretical frameworks supporting the various models educators and researchers are using in their pedagogical approaches to family literacy programs? As these questions are explored several…

This article details a series of seven workshops held to stimulate conversations about narrative therapy and its application to work with youth in non-clinical residential and community settings. These workshops were facilitated by clinical social workers and a psychologist for a team of program managers with whom they worked in a multi-service…

Educational technology-related professional development (ETPD) can be designed in many different ways. It varies by general purposes and goals, specific learning objectives, curriculum content, the student grade levels for which the strategies and tools presented are appropriate, professional development model(s) used, how it is matched to…

Study after study demonstrates that low-income students are severely underrepresented in higher education. In fact, the attendance rate of low-income students appears to be declining rather than growing. Individual Development Accounts or IDAs used for postsecondary education can help address the problem. With an IDA, youth can afford to enroll in…

How do you dynamically customize the programming language available in a context within an existing system, without changing the underlying system? This dissertation introduces a language design approach that addresses this problem. The basic idea is to structure programs as systems of multiple interacting levels of abstraction, where all of the…

In this paper, we demonstrate how theory can inform the design of a program to prepare graduate students for faculty careers. Preparing Future Faculty programs within and beyond engineering are not new, but explicit application of Communities of Practice and related literature is novel. We describe a prestigious teaching fellowship program that…

This publication is intended for three primary audiences: international development professionals who want to define "workforce" for program design purposes, those who seek information about field activities, and those who want to reflect on the implementation of successful, high impact programs--whether they were broad-based or…

The concepts of professional learning communities and organizational disciplines support staff development and leadership that lead to sustainable systems. Little research has examined the ability of rural schools to achieve sustainable systems. This quantitative design study considered the relationships between predictor variables of…

This guide is designed to help districts and schools evaluate reform efforts related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), including School Improvement Grants. It includes practical, how-to tips for conducting program evaluations, whether one takes a "do-it-yourself" approach or seeks outside assistance to evaluate reform…

When school personnel are confronted with initiatives that require changes in scholastic curricula, processes, programs, or structures, there is often a naturally occurring defensiveness against, instead of an open embrace of, new educational innovations (Hall & Hord, 2006). This article examines a whole-school reform initiative, specifically…