Tag » initiative

• Learning Academies: Module 4, Universal Designs for Learning

  1/1/04 - National Institute for Urban School Improvement,

  The concept of Universal Design foregrounds equitable opportunities and access to spaces, information and participation for all by creating environments and products that accommodate as many individuals as possible from the beginning. Universal Designs for Learning (UDL) extends Universal Design into the field of education. While initially defined as a method to minimize barriers students may experience when learning new concepts, this professional learning module presents UDL as an approach...

• 

  Principals of Inclusive Schools

  1/10/09 - Christine Salisbury , Gail McGregor, Equity Alliance at ASU

  School leaders play an important role in promoting and sustaining change in schools. Without their efforts, schools cannot change or improve to become places where all students are welcome, and where all students learn essential academic and non-academic lessons in preparation for life in the community. Nowhere is this initiative more important than in urban schools where many students have been left behind, shunted aside, or asked to learn with poor or inadequate buildings, materials, and...

• 

  Reconceptualizing Continuing Professional Development: A Framework for Planning

  1/1/06 - Diane L. Ferguson, Equity Alliance at ASU

  Teachers’ professional preparation, along with their working conditions, has been identified as fundamental to improving elementary and secondary education for the 21st Century (Darling-Hammond, 1997). A recent report by the National Center for Education Statistics (1997) reveals that many teachers are not adequately prepared for their teaching assignments even at initial licensure. This situation is worse in urban districts where significant numbers of teachers are not licensed, where...

• 

  AfterZones: Creating a Citywide System to Support and Sustain High-Quality After-School Programs

  1/23/10 - Laura J. Kotloff

  "Building on a long history of investments in OST learning, The Wallace Foundation launched an out-of-school learning initiative in 2003. The initiative was created to support citywide system-building efforts that could advance three interrelated goals for the OST field: improving program quality, making programs accessible to youth who need them most, and improving youth participation so more children can realize benefits. The Foundation granted funds to five cities to support their...

• 

  Georgia Graduation Coach Initiative - 2007-2008 Report

  1/14/09 - Georgia Department of Education,

  "The Georgia Department of Education (GaDOE) administers a statewide graduation coach program to identify and provide early intervention services to students at risk of dropping out of school. The program was initiated in the 2006-2007 school year and supported the placement of a graduation coach in Georgia public high schools. The program was subsequently expanded in 2007-2008 to include graduation coaches in middle schools. This program supports GaDOE Strategic Goal One by providing school...

• 

  A matter of degrees: Preparing teachers for the Pre-K classroom

  1/30/10 - Marisa Bueno, Linda Darting-Hammond, Danielle Gonzales

  "Across the nation, states are investing substantial dollars in publicly funded, voluntary pre-kindergarten programs. These investments and initiatives come in response to research on brain development,1 accountability pressures to improve student achievement in elementary and secondary schools and strong evidence that high-quality pre-k can yield long-term benefits for children and society. The ultimate value of those investments, however, depends not only on the legislation that...

• Academic achievement of homeless and highly mobile children in an urban school district: Longitudinal evidence on risk, growth, and resilience

  1/1/09 - Obradović, Jelena, Long, Jeffrey D., Cutuli, J. J., Chi-Keung, Chan, Hinz, Elizabeth, Heistad, David, Masten, Ann S.

  Longitudinal growth trajectories of reading and math achievement were studied in four primary school grade cohorts (GCs) of a large urban district to examine academic risk and resilience in homeless and highly mobile (H/HM) students. Initial achievement was assessed when student cohorts were in the second, third, fourth, and fifth grades, and again 12 and 18 months later. Achievement trajectories of H/HM students were compared to low-income but nonmobile students and all other tested...

• Acquisition of simple and complex knowledge: a knowledge gap perspective [computer file]

  1/1/05 - Le Heron, Judy, Sligo, Frank

  This paper assesses university students' acquisition of simple and complex knowledge, in exploring whether the knowledge gap hypothesis (KGH) with its origins in community-based research into people's informal learning from mass media, provides insights into students' acquisition and retention of information. The KGH posits that attempts to equalise knowledge within a community by releasing new information into it often either has no such effect, or even worsens knowledge inequities. The...

• 

  Adding value to discussions about value-added: A new framework for talking about teacher effectiveness

  1/16/09 - Raegen Miller

  "Past initiatives to improve teacher quality offer two general lessons. First, simplistic responses—across-the-board raises, more stringent licensure requirements, mandated professional development—are extremely expensive, utterly ineffective, or both. Only policies that tightly link incentives to desired results stand a chance of being effective and affordable. Clearly, making such links requires a robust approach to assessing teachers’ impact on outcomes of interest, especially...

• At Risk Children in Resegregated Schools: An Analysis of the Achievement Gap

  1/1/03 - Ipka, V. W.

  Historically, political and social forces have strategically converged to directly influence the formulation and implementation of education policies that seek to equalize educational opportunities for members of minority groups. Such has been the case with school desegregation efforts. Since the 1954 Brown Decision, powerful interest groups have sought and secured the assistance of the courts in providing legal support in abandoning desegregation initiatives. Unfortunately, fifty years...

• Attributed for academic achievement: A comparative study in tribal and non-tribal settings

  1/1/08 - Rath, Muralidhar

  The failure or poor performance of tribal students in their academic tests has initiated deep debates and grave discussions now-a-days. It is worthwhile to note that tribal students in India are not only they who reside in ashrams or hostels of different urban schools and colleges, and are mostly compared by researchers with non-tribal students. Rather, a major portion of tribals dwell in rural and tribal settings and some of them pursue their education in poorly maintained schools and...

• Beyond the regular education initiative and the resource room controversy.

  1/1/91 - Vergason, G.L., & Anderegg, M.L.

• Bridging the Knowing and Doing Gap: The No Child Left Behind Act, Race, and Suburban School Districts

  1/1/08 - Griffith, Henry C., Sr., Conrad, Timothy L.

  Details of how one suburban school district in Ohio has embraced the No Child Left Behind Act and embarked on several initiatives to meet its goals and to close the achievement gap between white and black students are provided. First, the district's top leadership dedicated itself to closing the achievement gap before committing others to the vision and a strong team was put in place to support leadership in making the changes necessary to transform the vision into reality. One of the...

• 

  Building Early Childhood Systems in a Multi-ethnic Society:

  1/12/09 - Build Initiative,

  Building Early Childhood Systems in a Multi-ethnic Socieity provides an overview of BUILD's briefs on diversity and equity.

• Closing the Achievement Gap in Math: The Long-Term Effects of Eighth-Grade Algebra

  1/1/06 - Spielhagen, Frances R.

  Recent changes in national and state mathematics standards have increased the level of algebraic thinking taught in younger grades. These changes have prompted more inclusive curriculum designs that open the opportunity to enroll in advanced mathematics courses at younger ages. Of particular interest to this study is the access to eighth-grade algebra, once traditionally reserved for select populations. This study examined long-term academic outcomes for students who did or did not enroll in...

• Closing the Achievement Gap With Curriculum Enrichment and Differentiation: One School's Story

  1/1/08 - Beecher, Margaret, Sweeny, Sheelah M.

  This article summarizes a unique approach to reducing the achievement gap that strategically blended differentiated curriculum with schoolwide enrichment teaching and learning. The theories of enrichment and instructional differentiation were translated into practice in an elementary school that had previously embraced a remedial paradigm. This enrichment approach resulted in improved student achievement and the reduction of the achievement gap between rich and poor and among different...