Various district-level factors contribute to the successful implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in schools, a widely implemented evidence-based framework supporting students' social, emotional, and behavioral development. Prior research has identified the district PBIS coordinator as a critical factor supporting…

In recent years, policymakers and scholars argued that state education agencies (SEAs) should move away from simply acting as compliance monitors and take on more prominent roles as providers of technical support to schools and school districts. Scholars find that SEAs have struggled to do so, yet there is little empirical work to explain what…

After the 2008 housing loan crisis, many houses were foreclosed/abandoned in Michigan, and specifically Grand Rapids (GR). Our study provides a collaborative and scalable model for collecting parcel-level housing data, in a southeast GR neighborhood within 15 U.S. Census Blocks. Grand Valley State University Geography faculty and students…

The malaria center is at the heart of the kind of work Michigan State University's (MSU) African Studies Center has been engaged in on the African continent since it was founded half a century ago. The university is marking the center's 50th anniversary this year with a series of events that include large photo exhibits at one of the university's…

Despite the national proliferation of technical assistance as a driver for school reform and as a model for embedded and sustained professional development, very little is known about the organizational structures and processes needed to support technical assistance. The purpose of this paper is to describe a structured needs assessment process…

In this article, the authors consider three sources of support for new teachers--hiring practices, relationships with colleagues, and curriculum--all found in earlier research to influence new teachers' satisfaction with their work, their sense of success with students, and their eventual retention in their job. They find that a "support…