Tag » focuses

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  Improving instruction through effective teacher evaluation: Options for states and districts

  1/3/09 - Mathers, C., Olivia, M., Laine, S.

  This brief discusses the measures used in teacher evaluation and focuses on their strengths, limitations, and current use. It underscores aspects of evaluation policies currently aligned with best practices and illuminates areas in which policymakers can improve evaluation rules, regulations, and implementation—thereby improving teacher instruction and student performance.

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  Indiana’s Vision of Response to Intervention

  1/2/09 - Yuri Kashima, Bridget Schleich, Terry Spradlin

  Response to Intervention (RTI) is a school-wide, integrative approach to instruction and intervention that provides a continuum of services to all students, both within general and special education (Martinez, Nellis, & Prendergast,2006). Further, RTI focuses on the frequent monitoring of student progress using formative* and summative*1 assessments, and providing students with differentiated and evidence-based classroom instruction. Thus, RTI can be viewed as a framework of service delivery...

• Iowa RtI funding model-lessons learned: Successful strategies and challenges

  1/1/09 - Southeast Comprehensive Center,

  Dr. William Tilly III, director of innovation and accountability, Heartland Area Education Agency 11, Iowa Department of Education, discusses how funding models impact instruction; a schoolwide system for student success; and the importance of using data to make decisions, funding student learning needs, and focusing on outcomes.

• LAGGING LITERACY

  1/1/01 - Christie, Kathy

  Focuses on efforts to improve literacy rates in the United States. Results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress report, which indicated an increasing gap between higher and lower scoring students; Mention of statistics regarding international literacy levels; Assertion that the U.S. needs to improve literacy standards, assessment and intervention programs; Example of the Texas Reading Initiative and other research-based programs for teaching reading.

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  Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools: A Report on Policy Insights from the Govenors' Forum Series

  1/19/09 - W.K. Kellogg Foundation,

  "This comprehensive report from the Governors' Forum series focuses on the transition and alignment policies necessary to help young children and their parents move easily from the early care system to K-12 education."

• Mentoring Matters: A Practical Guide to Learning-Focused Relationships

  1/1/03 - Laura Lipton, Ed. D and Bruce Wellman, M. Ed
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  Methods for assessing racial/ethnic disproportionality in special education: A technical assistance guide

  1/5/09 - Data Accountability Center,, Westat,

  “Many different methods of calculating disproportionality exist. Each of these methods represents a different way of reporting the same data, and each answers a different question about racial/ethnic representation in special education. This technical assistance guide focuses on two of the more common methods: composition and risk. (The authors) also discuss the risk ratio as a means for comparing risk. This technical assistance guide summarizes how to apply each of these methods...

• Monetary incentives in support of academic achievement: Results of a randomized field trial involving high-achieving, low-resource, ethnically diverse urban adolescents

  1/1/05 - Spencer, Margaret Beale, Noll, Elizabeth, Cassidy, Elaine

  Significant resources have been directed at understanding and alleviating the achievement gap in education. Most programs focused on this aim rely on a top-down approach, including funding for infrastructure improvement, curriculum development, class size, and teacher salaries. This article presents findings from a randomized field trial that evaluates a bottom-up approach in which high-achieving students of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds from poor families are given monetary...

• Narrowing the Gap?

  1/1/08 - Howie, Sarah ed, Plomp, Tjeerd ed

  A special issue based on the secondary analysis of data from the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study focusing on gaps between subgroups is presented. This special issue consists of five articles that look at subgroups in an individual country and study differences in performance in math and science between those groups as well as one article that takes a multinational approach to analyzing trends in gender differences.

• On becoming a school leader: A person -centered challenge

  1/1/99 - Arthur W. Combs; Ann .B. Miser; Katherine S.Whitaker

  Section I of this book describes why it is important for school leaders to understand how people's belief systems drive their personal and professional behaviour. Section II focuses on the need for school leaders to understand how and why people respond to,or resist,change. Section II focuses on how organizations influence peerson-centered leadership and how leaders, in turn, influence organizations.

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  On-Track to Graduation Early Warning Indicators Project: Introduction and Overview

  1/14/09 - Philadelphia Education Fund, , John Hopkins University,

  "On-Track to Graduation: The Early Warning Indicators Project (EWIP) began as a two-phase project focused on completing research to identify how early and with which factors we could identify potential dropouts and moving these practices into school-based practice. Now in its third year, the project has become a national demonstration site of Diplomas Now, a multi-tiered dropout prevention collaboration in partnership with Johns Hopkins University, City Year, and Communities in Schools."

• Pathways to Understanding: Patterns and Practices in the Learning-Focused Classroom

  1/1/00 - Laura Lipton, Ed. D and Bruce Wellman, M. Ed
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  Paving the path to urban school principalship

  1/5/09 - Coggshall, J., Stewart, J., Bhatt, M

  This brief focuses on what it takes to attract talented and experienced individuals to the principalship. It describes what inspires some people to start on this path, what gives them pause, and what deters others entirely. Using the research literature and results from four focus groups of aspiring principals in three major cities, this brief describes the steps along the pathway to the principalship as well as the characteristics of the individuals taking the journey. Based on these...

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  Paying the price: The impact of immigration raids on America's children

  1/5/09 - Randy Capps, Rosa Maria Castañeda, Ajay Chaudry, Robert Santos

  "The primary goal of this paper is to go beyond the human interest stories reported in the media and provide a factual basis for discussing the impact of worksite enforcement operations on children with undocumented parents. The study focuses on children because they have strong claims to the protection of society, especially when they are citizens and integrated into their schools and communities, and the United States is the only country they have known and consider home. They also warrant...

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  Peer-led professional development for equity and diversity: A report for teachers and administrators based on findings from the SEED project

  1/14/09 - Towery, I., Rachel Oliveri, Calvin Gidney

  This publication provides an overview of an intensive application of the National SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity). SEED is a peer-led, school-based, professional development project focused on making school climates, teaching methods, and curricula more gender-fair and multiculturally equitable.

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  Practical guidelines for the education of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for the use of accomodations in large scale assessments.

  1/5/09 - Francis, D., Rivera, M. , Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., Rivera, H.

  Book 3 of 3: This book, released in October 2006, is the third in a series of three Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners. NCLB has increased awareness of the academic needs and achievement of ELLs as schools, districts, and states are held accountable for teaching English and content knowledge to ELLs. ELLs present a unique set of challenges to educators because of the central role played by academic language proficiency in the acquisition and assessment of...