This study examines a Wallace Foundation-sponsored initiative aimed at improving the financial management skills and practices of 25 Chicago afterschool providers through training and coaching. Two models for this professional development were provided and each produced long-lasting improvements. Moreover, organizations receiving the…

Dropout is a serious problem within education. This article reports on an intervention project, titled "New Roles for the Teacher--Increased Completion Rates Through Social Responsibility," which sought to reduce nonattendance and drop-out rates in the Danish adult educational system by improving teachers' competences. This goal was…

School district officials have faced the urgent task in recent years of ensuring that all schools, not just a lucky few, benefit from sure-footed leadership by professionals who know how to focus on instruction and improve it. The question boils down to this: How can districts develop a pipeline of great school principals? Research about a Wallace…

This report is the fourth in a series of Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF) reports tracking the progress of Wisconsin's YoungStar program, a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) launched in 2011 to improve the quality of Wisconsin child care programs. YoungStar focuses on children of low-income working families receiving…

This article introduces an Australian adaptation of an approach to supporting school leadership and improvement pioneered by educationalists David Townsend and Pam Adams, from Alberta, Canada. Referred to as the North Coast Initiative for School Improvement, the adaptation involved school leaders, academics, and government officials who combined…

The Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) has been a successful and popular initial teacher education (ITE) programme since the 1950s, with the masters level PGCE being successfully embedded within universities in England since 2007 and having high levels of student satisfaction. Recent White Papers, policy and reviews have undermined the…

Over the last decade, higher education has come under intense scrutiny from the government; accrediting agencies in particular have come under fire for a lack of accountability and transparency. Reports from the Commission on the Future of Higher Education and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee served as a driving force for…

The Partnership for Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the National Governor's Association formed a coalition to present common standards for all grade levels across all states (PARCC, 2012). Louisiana was one of the initial state participants who agreed to create a specific timeline for implementation. The purpose of this study was to…

In response to current accountability, program evaluation, and accreditation pressures, educator preparation programs are implementing electronic assessment systems (EAS). The EAS provides a means of systematic, reliable, and valid procedures for the purpose of collecting and summarizing teacher candidate performance and program data. The purpose…

In 1 state's Part C early intervention (EI) program, families are afforded a unique opportunity to connect with parent educators (PEs), parents of children who have received EI services, and who are trained to support EI families and staff with a range of tailored duties. In an effort to continually reflect and improve upon the role of PEs, the…

This feature has told stories of high school physical educators who have refused to accept the status quo of high school physical education programs. They have identified problems, initiated innovations in their own classes, implemented changes beyond their classes, and moved toward institutionalizing improvements throughout their programs and…

Since Head Start's last reauthorization in 2007, the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, has implemented significant reforms that are improving the program. In "Renewing Head Start's Promise: Invest in What Works for Disadvantaged Preschoolers," Sara Mead offers several recommendations to enable…

This study was an evaluation of the career services component of TRIO Student Support Services at a Midwestern university. The problem in the local setting was the absence of empirical evidence demonstrating compliance of TRIO career services with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Professional Standards for College and…

In its final report, the At-risk Working Group, which reported to the Ontario Minister of Education, described at-risk secondary students as performing significantly below the provincial standard, failing to meet curriculum expectations, and being disengaged from school (O'Connor, 2003, p. 5). In this special issue, authors examine this topic,…

One of the universal responses to tackling global climate change is teaching climate change concepts at all levels of formal education. This response requires, among other things, teachers who are fully literate about climate change science, so that they can explain the concepts underlying the causes, impacts and solutions of climate change as…