Assisted by the COVID-19 Response Fund, nonprofit organizations and their staffs have fed thousands of families culturally relevant food, preserved housing for residents at risk of homelessness, distributed vaccines, strengthened mental health services for survivors of domestic violence, delivered enriching youth programming when schools could not…

This article describes a concept called the "blue ocean thinking strategy," developed by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, professors at INSEAD, an international graduate school of business in France. The "blue ocean" thinking strategy considers opportunities to create new markets for services, rather than focusing solely on…

Individual Career and Academic Plans (ICAPs) are a key piece of connected career advising that align learners' career and life goals with academic, postsecondary and career pathway options. ICAPs have different names in different states, including Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) and Individual Graduation Plans (IGPs). They refer to both the…

Across the United States, a movement to create a new kind of public school--"autonomous district schools"--is giving districts the freedoms charter schools receive. Like charter schools, autonomous district schools are freed from innovation-inhibiting state and district policies, allowing talented educators to make academic and…

The Synergy Charter Academy, one of three charter schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), used to occupy a cramped church space in south LA. Despite the facilities challenges, its more than 300 K students have generally scored in the top 10% on statewide tests in reading and math over the past seven years. When the district…

Teacher residency programs are a relatively new method for building stronger teacher pipelines. Research assessing the impact of these programs is still limited, but some early reports suggest that residency programs hold promise for improving teacher effectiveness and retention rates (Barrett, Hovde, Hahn, & Rosqueta, 2011; Papay, West,…

The Wallace Foundation is funding a multiyear demonstration project to determine whether voluntary, district summer learning programs can stem summer learning loss for low-income students. Six districts--Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Duval County (Florida), Pittsburgh, and Rochester, New York--were selected for the demonstration project and…

The education headlines have been filled with grim news about facility closings, teacher layoffs and program cutbacks. When the economic climate is gloomy, few areas of schools and universities are spared. In areas outside the classroom, such as safety and security, the cuts may be larger and come more quickly. When money is scarce, education…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify significant external and internal challenges that state organization leaders face in promoting science-based teen pregnancy prevention programs within their states. The state organization administrators were chosen because their organizations were funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control…

While numerous professors and administrators can agree upon the benefits of infusing the curriculum with experiential learning, a commonly stated obstacle to widespread curricular reform is funding. Specifically, given that external institutional support can be difficult to procure, especially in uncertain economic times, institutions might…

This paper presents the third part of the "Massachusetts Primer on Special Education and Charter Schools." Part III addresses the issues concerning the education of students with disabilities at all stages in the development and operation of a Massachusetts charter school. The information is intended to inform those who are responsible…

Communities face powerful challenges--a high-school dropout epidemic, youth unemployment, teen pregnancy--that require powerful solutions. In a climate of increasingly constrained resources, those solutions must help communities to achieve more with less. A new kind of community collaborative--an approach that aspires to significant,…

Adjustments that state policy-makers and institutions of higher education will need to make as they face cutbacks in public support and declining enrollments are described, based in part on a research project on retrenchment in higher education conducted by the Southern Regional Education Board. Given the long-term contractual obligations of…

This Massachusetts Long-Range Plan was developed to set broad strategic direction for the use of Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds, to inform Massachusetts libraries of these directions, and to meet the statutory requirement. This plan details specific goals and objectives that support the stated mission: to provide every resident…

State governments have the capacity to address health resource allocations productively. It is recommended that Massachusetts make an explicit and unequivocal commitment to regional planning and finally, to a state health plan to identify priority needs and resources. (MSE)