By 2012, all of the states in this study had started implementing new or revised teacher and leader evaluation systems. There are many and varying updates to these systems, and some of them have been made to meet conditions for a state's federal "Race to the Top" (RTT) grant. Other updates have been made to meet conditions for a state's…

All of the 15 states in this study have recently been involved in school accountability system reform. Since 2011, the states have taken advantage of a federal program to give them flexibility around certain accountability requirements of the "No Child Left Behind Act" of 2001 (NCLB), the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and…

The role of the principal is rapidly changing. Once seen as building managers tasked with bus schedules and student discipline, principals now lead a range of school-level reform efforts. But not all principals are equipped to lead dramatic student achievement gains or know which actions to prioritize. Research on school leaders in urban areas…

There is a dearth of literature that use research design for causal inference that estimate the effect of information and communications technology (ICT) programs on literacy outcomes in early primary, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are several programs that have used ICT at a large scale, including Los Angeles, Peru, Nicaragua, Rwanda…

Background/Context: Under supplemental educational services ("supplemental services"), a parental choice provision of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools that have not made adequate yearly progress in increasing student achievement are required to offer low-income families free, afterschool tutoring. Existing research shows low…

The Common Core State Standards aren't exactly new; it's been two years since most states adopted them. But it took those two years for the standards to trickle down from abstraction to daily practice, from a sheaf of papers in a state capital into a lesson plan on a teacher's desk. Now they're reshaping reading instruction in significant ways.…

In one of the first large-scale analyses of urban trends on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research identified urban school systems that demonstrated high achievement or significant achievement gains on the NAEP, and examined possible factors behind…

This paper reports on the development of a new information communications technology (ICT) learning preference survey, its cross-validation with attitudes towards mobile learning, and new perspectives on information seeking, information sharing, and mobile access derived from the relationships uncovered. The Information and Communications…

Over the last four years, the Afterschool Alliance and MetLife Foundation have worked together to identify exemplary, and often lesser-known afterschool programs across the nation. For the past two years, efforts have focused on finding innovative afterschool programs serving middle school students. This focus was developed to address the need for…

New standards alone will not prepare all students for college and careers. The success of the Common Core State Standards depends on educators' capacity to make the instructional shifts the standards require. Meeting the promise of content standards cannot be achieved merely by agreeing on and publishing the new standards. Effective teaching of…

The purpose of this study was to generate an understanding of the experiences of mathematics teachers examining recommendations for Reasoning and Sense Making (NCTM, 2009) and investigating them in their practice. Narrative inquiry incorporates the voices of teachers and illustrates the phenomenon studied through narratives of participants'…

This paper examines a sampling of arguments for and against the Common Core State Standards from the period surrounding their adoption. While supporters of the standards have articulated common goals such as economic security, equity, and alignment, opposing voices have failed to coalesce around a unified set of principles or a common language. An…

Finding the best way for students to learn and achieve success is of utmost importance to the State of Illinois and the nation as a whole. College and career success is critical to the national and state economy. Career and technical education (CTE) has been central to this call for greater college completion, and the credentials that CTE provides…

As states seek waivers under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, one effect may be to chip away at the dominance reading and math have had when it comes to school accountability. Many state waiver applications include plans to factor test scores in one or more additional subjects into their revised accountability systems. Seven of the 11 states…

States vary greatly in their implementation of standards-based accountability under No Child Left Behind, yet little evidence is available to guide policymakers on what attributes of state policy advance more tightly aligned instruction. This study uses survey data and content analyses from the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum to describe elements of…