Transparency is a fundamental trait that teachers must exhibit in their district and on their campus in order to understand the mission and goals of the district and campus. Educators need proper training and guidance from district and campus leaders to establish a collective efficacy for the benefit of student success. As school districts find…

This qualitative case study focused on one public school district that has successfully sustained innovative educational initiatives over several years. The purpose of the study was to explore the factors that contribute to sustaining innovative initiatives in a public school district through the perspectives and experiences of administrators,…

Attention deficient hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the most common childhood neurodevelopment disorder, and severe digital game use has recently shown significant promise in this psychotherapeutic area. Digital serious games have also been used as an innovative teaching and learning approach. This study aimed to explore middle school teachers'…

Public schools buckled under the shock that arrived with the global pandemic, most closing their doors in March 2020. Still fresh in our memories, teachers attempted online instruction, viewing their students each day as small squares on computer screens. We know all too well that learning curves of students flattened or fell. Many kids and…

In this brief, we detail three major findings from our year of interviews and observations: (1) We describe how the external contexts of schooling shifted throughout the pandemic and how many of these outside pressures persist today; (2) We look internally at how district leaders make sense of external pressures and weigh their internal values to…

Launching new, pioneering programs to improve student outcomes requires consistent support to help maximize impact. The Region 1 Comprehensive Center (R1CC) and the Maine Department of Education (Maine DOE) wanted to provide evidence-based strategies to support pilot programs launched under the state's Rethinking Responsive Education Ventures…

Across the country, district-community teams are tackling pressing and complex educational challenges with Inclusive Innovation, an education R&D model that starts with centering the needs of those most impacted by these challenges. This paper shares the stories, solutions, outcomes, and learnings from years of deep collaboration in the words…

In business, entrepreneurship is considered an impetus for change and innovation, potentially leading to the implementation of effective change and practices. In the last two decades, a discourse on entrepreneurship has surfaced within the education system. This study focuses on entrepreneurial processes initiated and led by local education…

The inconsistencies between agents of the educational system, where it reigns tensions and disjointed mechanisms that express failures of multidisciplinary action, make schools behave like pseudomorphic systems. This article examines interactions between autonomy and control, resorting to a qualitative study with a quantitative approach to…

We use frame analysis to analyze the first iteration of the Texas District of Innovation policy, which allows districts to take exemption from state education requirements mandating the hiring of a state certified teacher. We analyzed 451 district policies and find the plans use very similar, and sometimes identical, language to frame both the…

The COVID-19 pandemic, along with historical inequities, resulted in a widening of the achievement gap between underserved populations and more advantaged students. In response to this issue, California took action by allocating additional funds to public school districts for out-of-school-time services through the Expanded Learning Opportunities…

Our classrooms haven't kept pace with innovation. The Ford Model T represented breakthrough technology in its day--more than 100 years ago--but it wouldn't serve us well today. Likewise, our traditional classroom model from the same era doesn't work well for far too many students and teachers. In fact, as a result of this outdated model, it is…

The set of appendices in this volume is a companion to the report "Federal Efforts Towards Investing in Innovation in Education Through the i3 Fund: A Summary of Grantmaking and Evidence-Building." The goal of the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) was to build high-quality evidence about effective…

Multilingualism gives rise to cognitive, educational, economic, and sociocultural benefits. In fact, it's one of the U.S. Department of Education's big initiatives through Raise the Bar: Lead the World. In this infographic, gain insights about the growing population of multilingual learners and how educational agencies, schools, and educators can…

Finding innovative educational strategies that work is important to help improve student learning and close equity gaps nationwide. The goal of the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) was to build high-quality evidence about effective educational strategies and to expand implementation of these strategies. Between 2010…