The mission and vision of adult education is to provide every individual in Illinois access to Adult Education and Literacy services. In Illinois, more than 1.15 million adults have less than 12 grades of formal education, approximately 2.8 million Illinois residents speak a language other than English in their home, and more than 350,944…

Rosemary Barilla, a middle-grade language arts teacher, inspired by her own dedication to the arts, describes the ways she integrates the fine arts into her classroom program that is designed to teach reading and writing. Tina Boyer Brown, a founding teacher at The Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts®), describes the school as a place where…

The mission and vision of adult education is to provide every individual in Illinois access to Adult Education and Literacy services. In Illinois, more than 1.15 million adults have less than 12 grades of formal education, approximately 2.8 million Illinois residents speak a language other than English in their home, and more than 350,944…

Each state and jurisdiction that participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2013 Grade 12 Reading and Mathematics State Pilot assessment receives a one-page snapshot report that presents key findings and trends in a condensed format. This report presents the results for Illinois' 2013 student achievement in reading. In…

The mission and vision of adult education is to provide every individual in Illinois access to Adult Education and Literacy services. In Illinois, more than 1.15 million adults have less than 12 grades of formal education, approximately 2.8 million Illinois residents speak a language other than English in their home, and more than 350,944…

Our nation's educational system has scored many extraordinary successes in raising the level of reading and writing skills in younger children. Yet the pace of literacy improvement in our schools has not kept up with the accelerating demands of the global knowledge economy. In state after state, the testing data mandated by No Child Left Behind…

This study assessed whether and how self-explanation reading training, provided by iSTART (Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking), improves the effectiveness of comprehension processes. iSTART teaches students how to self-explain and which strategies will most effectively aid comprehension from moment-to-moment. We used…

The Illinois Striving Readers (ISR) Project had two purposes: (1) implement a supplemental reading intervention for students in ninth grade who were reading below grade level; and (2) study the impact of the intervention on students' performance on standardized assessments using a randomized control trial design. The Illinois Striving Readers…

Annually, ACT provides a snapshot of the college and career readiness of ACT-tested high school graduates. This report is offered as a service to inform policymakers and practitioners about selected indicators of effectiveness and how that translates into readiness. It is designed to stimulate discussion, inquiry, and action. This report is…

In order to achieve middle school literacy success over time in an urban school district with a high poverty rate and a growing population of English language learners (ELLs), the Chicago Public School (CPS) System has adopted a pedagogical strategy that relies on instruction that is data-driven (formative and summative), standards-based…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Response to Intervention: A New Approach to Reading Instruction Aims to Catch Struggling Readers Early (Nancy Walser); (2) Getting Advisory Right: Focus and…

"The Achiever" is a monthly publication designed expressly for parents and community leaders. Each issue contains news and information about school improvement in the United States. Highlights of this issue include: (1) Spellings Convenes National Summit on Higher Education; (2) Noble Street: Chicago Charter High School Creates a Culture…

For five years running, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has tracked states' teacher policies, preparing a detailed and thorough compendium of teacher policy in the United States on topics related to teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, career advancement, tenure, compensation, pensions and dismissal. The 2011 State Teacher…