Many schools identified by states as needing improvement through their Elementary and Secondary Education Act waivers have selected Response to Intervention (RTI), a three-tiered instruction program sometimes referred to as tiered levels of instruction, as one of their main strategies for improving school performance and closing achievement gaps.…

Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest assisted Milwaukee Public Schools in developing a fidelity monitoring system for measuring schools' progress in implementing Response to Intervention (RTI). The study examined the ratings produced by that system to determine the system's reliability, schools' progress in implementing RTI, and whether ratings…

This applied dissertation was designed to provide perceptual teacher data as well as summative testing data to educational leaders concerning the effects of implementing Investigations in Number, Data, and Space® (Investigations) in three Title I elementary school settings, two Title I schools, and one non-Title I school. Data collected during…

This guide is designed to facilitate self-studies of planning and implementation of state-required summer reading camp programs for grade 3 students who scored at the lowest level on the state reading assessment. It provides a template for data collection and guiding questions for discussion that may improve instruction and increase the number of…

The practical need for multidimensional measures of fidelity of implementation (FOI) of reform-based science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instructional materials, combined with a theoretical need in the field for a shared conceptual framework that could support accumulating knowledge on specific enacted program elements across…

Using clickers to gauge student understanding in large classrooms is well documented. Less well known is the effectiveness of using clickers with youth for test taking in large-scale Extension programs. This article describes the benefits and challenges of collecting evaluation data using clickers with a third-grade population participating in a…

This case study examined three K-5 schools, one 3-5 school, and two K-2 schools that implemented Michigan's Behavior and Learning Support Initiative (MiBLSi) and showed improvement trends in third grade reading achievement as measured by MEAP results over four years. Each of the six schools completed the three years of MiBLSi training and are…

This article describes Project Athena, a Javits program funded by the U.S. Department of Education and developed through the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary. Project Athena seeks to find ways to help impoverished children develop advanced skills in reading comprehension, literary analysis, and persuasive writing. Its…