The purpose of the "District Self-Assessment Tool" is to provide school district and community stakeholders with an approach for assessing district capacity to support a college readiness indicator system and track progress over time. The tool draws on lessons from the collective implementation experiences of the four College Readiness…

This paper is a reflection on the use of public spaces in towns and the development of a system-events toolbox to activate them towards social cohesion. It is the result of a 1 year action research developed together with POLIMI DESIS Lab of the Department of Design to develop design solutions to open up the public spaces of the campus to the…

Effective community college leaders make a difference in the culture and performance of the institution. The research study sought to discover leadership strategies that lead to the achievement of high performance outcomes in community colleges. In 2013, the American Association of Community Colleges Competencies for effective leadership criteria…

This Core Data Service (CDS) Spotlight focuses on public computing resources, including lab/cluster workstations in buildings, virtual lab/cluster workstations, kiosks, laptop and tablet checkout programs, and workstation access in unscheduled classrooms. The findings are derived from 758 CDS 2012 participating institutions. A dataset of 529…

School safety policies are constantly evolving, often in response to fatal events. After several high-profile and tragic shootings over the past 15 years, school safety has become a major focus for parents, school officials, policymakers and the public nationwide. ECS [Education Commission of the States] conducted a scan of school safety-related…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers association (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of multiple decisions made every year in every state in each of these areas. No single report can provide definitive answers to these broad and…

The third edition of the National Report Card examines the condition of states' finance systems as the country emerges from the Great Recession, but is still wrestling with its consequences. As in prior editions, this Third Edition of the National Report Card continues to make the case for states to take immediate and longer-term action to improve…

As part of its proposal to the U.S. Department of Education, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) committed to developing Kindergarten through Grade 2 Model Content Frameworks for Mathematics (K-2 Model Content Frameworks) to serve as a bridge between the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the PARCC…

A state department of education (SDE) served by the Southeast Comprehensive Center (SECC) at SEDL requested information regarding state use of schoolwide, large-scale professional learning communities (PLCs). Specifically, the SDE staff wanted to know the following with respect to PLC work in other states: (1) Are PLCs state-mandated through…

Family engagement in a student's education can lead to improved student academic achievement, attendance, and behavior. Yet many districts and schools still struggle to form strong partnerships with the families they serve. Having a supportive district-level infrastructure is key to the success and sustainability of family engagement initiatives.…

The New Bilingual Teacher Institute follow-up survey during March 2014 allowed new bilingual teachers in Austin Independent School District to reflect on how well their August 2013 training prepared them and its usefulness, professional development, and support and resources received in their first year of teaching.

Studies show that changes in teacher education around the world occur slowly and are difficult to implement. This study aims to contribute to the discussion on the major resources for and obstacles to developing teacher education and finding novel solutions to overcome the obstacles. Resources and obstacles were investigated in the context of…

The "Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education" reports cite the critical role of professional societies in undergraduate life science education and, since 2008, have called for the increased involvement of professional societies in support of undergraduate education. Our study explored the level of support being provided by…

Currently, the majority of students with disabilities are educated in a general education classroom, which led to a paradigm shift and pedagogies used to meet the needs of all students. The research problem was that general education teachers use of highly effective evidence-based interventions that improve academic achievement for students with…

For many decades, the social imbalances had a significant impact on the academic success of African Americans. High school completion rates for African American students were disproportionately lower when compared to their Caucasian counterparts. This purpose of this qualitative study was to display factors that contributed to African American…