States that receive federal waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act were required to implement reforms in designated "Focus Schools" that contribute to achievement gaps. We examine the performance effects of such "differentiated accountability" reforms in Louisiana. These Focus School reforms emphasized school-needs assessments…

This protocol guides the review of research that informs the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) intervention reports in the postsecondary Career and Technical Education (CTE) topic area. The review-specific protocol is used in conjunction with the "WWC Procedures and Standards Handbook" (version 4.0). WWC reviews in this topic area focus on…

Strong relationships with senior administrators, effective cross-campus collaboration, and efficient use of technology are central to impactful IR in small colleges.

Most studies evaluating the effectiveness of school internships have relied on self-assessments that are prone to self-presentational distortions. Therefore, the present study analyzed the improvement in the instructional quality of 102 student teachers (46 women) from a German university during a 15-week internship at a local secondary school…

Historically, community colleges have promoted social mobility by providing access to higher education, especially for underrepresented groups. Because of their geographic availability, open admissions policy, and low cost, these colleges have expanded educational opportunity to millions of Americans, young and old. Recently, however, the emphasis…

Charter schools exist under the umbrella of public education, but are not subject to the same level of public oversight or accountability measures as traditional public schools in North Carolina and many other states (BiFulco and Ladd, 2006, Bettinger, 2004). There is a lack of easily accessible efficiency data on charter schools. The primary aim…

In New Mexico's Rio Rancho school district, students and educators at Puesta del Sol Elementary take inspiration from Spirit the Eagle's ability to soar. The mascot, who presides over approximately 750 students and 100 staff members, embodies the vision and tenaciousness that lifted the suburban Albuquerque school from a disappointing state report…

Despite ample evidence that Massachusetts's charter public schools are among the highest performing schools--charter or traditional--in the country, a 2016 ballot initiative to open more of them failed by a large margin. Rhetoric on both sides of the issue was driven by emotion rather than data, and charter school detractors successfully advanced…

The purpose of this report was to determine which Mississippi public schools perform better than could be predicted, considering demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Additionally, this study identified profiles of schools within Mississippi, or groups of schools with similar socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. This study…

Superintendents confront a number of external and internal demands as leaders of complex educational organizations. Compounding the external demands superintendents confront is the recent, heightened advancement of national educational reform policy occurring through the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations. The federal education reform…

External consultancy in schools by those who do not belong to the teaching staff has always been an important factor in school development. Such consulting goes hand in hand with the idea that internal school development processes and their results can be influenced positively by external experts. This is even more so for "failing…

Background/Context: Full-service community schools provide comprehensive and coordinated resources and supports to meet the complex needs of children and families in low-income communities. Given their intentional focus on expanded networks of school, family, and community stakeholders, full-service community schools are particularly useful…

School leadership has been identified as a key function to assuring quality in education. Principals' leadership can have a direct effect on students' learning by improving teaching, or an indirect effect by creating conditions that foster learning. This exploratory study aims to understand how school principals exercise their leadership and its…

The research reports how a particular school reform initiative--'Project 600'--constituted students in one school region Queensland, Australia. Drawing upon topological understandings of power and recent work on the visualisation of data in education, as well as the insights of key staff involved in the project, we reveal the complex and…

The JMC Innovation Project recently released its first report, "The 'New' JMC: Creating Cultures of Innovation in Schools of Journalism, Media and Communication," which assessed the scope and status of innovation in schools and colleges of journalism, media and communication (JMC), based on personal interviews with 70 deans and directors…