Recent changes in educational policy have placed 21st-century skills at the forefront of arts education, presenting arts educators with an opportunity to reassess instructional practices. Popular music pedagogies are approaches to learning and practicing popular music that may be useful for addressing 21st-century skills and knowledge in arts…

In 2017 Georgia instituted a flexibility policy through which school districts enter into performance contracts with the state that grant districts waivers from state rules and allow schools and districts greater autonomy. In exchange, schools and districts must meet academic performance targets. The performance contracts are intended to…

At the intersection of biology and computer science is the growing field of bioinformatics--the analysis of complex datasets of biological relevance. Despite the increasing importance of bioinformatics and associated practical applications, these are not standard topics in elementary and middle school classrooms. We report on a pilot project and…

A group of elementary school reading teachers used their time in a Professional Learning Community to develop a systematic intervention to address the needs of struggling readers in grades 3 to 5. Working as a team, they identified a collection of books that was culturally diverse, high interest, appealing to boys and girls, aligned with…

Grantmakers for Education's Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking identify "innovation" and "constant learning" as a core proposition for achieving results in education philanthropy. To illustrate this principle, "Learning by Doing" examines the Noyce Foundation's efforts to apply new information to its…

High-achieving kids from low-income families too often fall into the achievement trap; as they progress up the grades, their academic performance falls, and they are far less likely to remain star students than are middle-class or wealthy high-achievers. So says the first U.S.-wide analysis of high-achieving students from poor families (published…

The purpose of this article is to focus on the development and refinement of a science instructional design program arguing for the feasibility and usability of integrated reading and science instruction as implemented in third- and fourth-grade science classrooms to meet the learning needs of diverse learners. These instructional components are…

An easily-implemented instructional innovation that improved reading comprehension for students including striving readers, average readers, and advanced readers is described in this article. START (Students and Teachers Actively Reading Text) was developed to improve reading comprehension instruction and achievement. This innovative instructional…

Can second-grade students construct an understanding of sophisticated science processes and explore physics concepts while creating their own inventions? Yes! Students accomplished this and much more through a month-long project in which they used Legos and Robolab, the Lego computer programing software, to create their own inventions. One…

This is the description of a teacher using the creation of a class newspaper as a vehicle to improve the writing ability of Grade 3 students. In this instance, there was the added benefit of creating a community of learners who worked and supported each other in their classroom. Notes from parents, comments from students and teacher observations…

Even after acting on the best available information to make a grantmaking decision, a grantmaker should seek to learn from grantees, remain adaptable to new ideas and open to unexpected learning, and willing to admit when grants do not turn out as expected. To this end, Grantmakers for Education's Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking…

While researchers continue to debate teacher qualifications, explore how to get more qualified teachers into urban schools serving low-income students, or try to determine whether teachers who are successful with middle-class students would also be successful with pupils in low-income urban schools, one practicable idea can easily be overlooked.…