The key to improving education is the classroom teacher. Students must have skillful, highly effective teachers who have consistent access to on going professional development. NCLB offers guidelines for effective professional development. States interpret these guidelines and add their own varied legislative requirements. The current result is an…

Ten years after the San Diego school district gained national attention for its short-lived "Blueprint for Student Success," a crowd of district officials last week rolled out a new improvement plan that is almost the opposite of its controversial predecessor. The city's blueprint reforms--largely dismantled after a charismatic and…

The focus on instructional leadership has reached a crescendo with the waivers for No Child Left Behind (2002). The leadership of the principal is known to be a key factor in supporting student achievement; however, recruitment and retention of administrators in rural areas of the Midwest is very difficult. This survey research study explored the…

The improvement of schools has been a central discussion among educators, legislators, and stakeholders, with professional development being acknowledged as a fundamental topic for the success of the education system. Studying the alignment of professional development programs provided at Title I Achieving schools to NCLB research based…

This project utilized descriptive methodology to examine the research question, how is technology being used in the classroom, as perceived by public school teachers in Milwaukee during early 21st century? In order to fully analyze this question, both quantitative and qualitative data were utilized. The researcher developed a survey for the…

Hunt and McDonnell have provided an excellent overview of one of the most important aspects of planning for students with severe disabilities--an ecological curricular framework that is created with input from the student, family, and needs of current and future environments. The standards-based reform-movement has created tension for educators to…

This hearing of the Committee of Health, Education, Labor and Pensions focused on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This hearing on the economic importance of having a world-class K-12 education system should remind everyone of the critical importance of this reauthorization. Well-educated Americans are the single…

Research and professional leadership standards identify specific ways in which principals directly influence school organization and community relationships and exert less direct, but critically important, influence on teaching quality and instructional effectiveness. Principals' roles are central to supporting and supervising teachers'…

Each year, Austin Independent School District Department of Research and Evaluation (DRE) staff develop a plan of work to describe the scope of work for the coming year. The plans that make up this document identify programs to be evaluated and services to be provided by DRE staff and provide the blueprints for evaluation that staff will follow…

The purpose of this mixed methods research is to examine teachers' perspectives on the response to intervention (RTI) framework and its implementation in Michigan and Texas schools. Both states have been leaders in literacy, increasing preservice and in-service teacher certification standards and developing similar batteries for assessing literacy…

The United States education system depends on legislation and funding at the federal, state and local levels. Public understanding of assessment therefore is important to educational reform in the USA. Educational reformers often invoke assessment information as a reason for reform, typically by citing unacceptable achievement on some measure or…

The purpose of this study was to provide insight into teacher perceptions as to if and how professional learning communities (PLCs) promote and support effective professional development in a rural high school. Effective professional development should enhance pedagogy, which is defined as improving educational practices of teachers through…

This article reports findings from a literature review on literacy instruction for adolescents with significant cognitive disabilities. Nineteen empirical studies published between 1975 and 2011 were included in the review and analyzed based on characteristics of interventions. The results were examined to determine whether the state of research…

The current study focuses on results from a national survey of special education mathematics teachers in secondary psychiatric schools. A total of 115 (33.04%) respondents completed a mail or online survey concerning school-level mathematics curriculum and assessment policies and practices. No statistically significant differences existed between…

Public schools are attempting to work with a growing number of immigrant English language learners (ELLs) in the U.S. education system at a time when the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has mandated that ELLs achieve proficiency on assessments even if they have not acquired sufficient language proficiency. The purpose of this qualitative case…