Understanding how farmers prefer to learn is critical for the development and delivery of successful extension programming. Therefore, Michigan State University Extension specialists conducted an interactive hands-on demonstration workshop (Potato University) addressing pressing issues to Michigan potato production at the Michigan Winter Potato…

The Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) encourages states to promote equity in Career Technical Education (CTE) through data analysis, funding, technical assistance, professional development, and regular engagement of stakeholders representing learners with special population status. While Perkins V…

The exclusion of caregivers and other stakeholders from conversations about child care policy design exacerbates inequities in the sector. By design, women, people of color, parents, people without wealth or high incomes, and child care providers are severely underrepresented in positions of power, including the government positions that influence…

Teacher certificates often span broad grade bands, such as K-5, K-6, or even K-8. To earn these certificates, teacher candidates often spend more time learning content designed for older children and less on early childhood development and early literacy and numeracy. This issue of "State Innovations" highlights the Michigan State Board…

Community-engaged scholars, practitioners, and community partners often find the language of community engagement challenging. Words like "participate," "collaborate," "partner," or "engage" fail to convey who in a community-university partnership has voice and authority in decision-making and responsibility…

This brief serves as a practice-oriented companion to "Recommitting to Stewardship of Place: Creating and Sustaining Thriving Communities for the Decades Ahead" (Orphan & McClure, 2022)[ED627610]. Whereas the philosophical report provides a set of principles that constitute stewardship in a new postsecondary context, this…

The Accelerated Learning Work Group's introductory Guide to Accelerated Learning offers descriptions, resources, and examples of state education agencies implementing Accelerated Learning into their programs. It also answers questions, such as: (1) How should Accelerated Learning be implemented?; (2) How are educators best supported during…

Collaboration among stakeholders in the early childhood education (ECE) field is often upheld as a goal--and with good reason: It promotes effective, sustainable policymaking, creates consistency, reduces redundancy, and fills gaps across local, state, and national systems, policies, and infrastructure. Yet the obstacles to collaboration are…

Successful schools have a clearly defined vision for student success, usually measured by college and career readiness standards. They are able to articulate success indicators for student performance as well as success indicators for the staff performance needed to meet those student indicators. Successful schools are able to describe a theory of…

This report includes the latest information about how investment in early childhood education (ECE) correlates to school success and economic development. Members of state boards of education know that quality experiences have the largest impact on student outcomes. This report outlines quality in ECE, highlighting challenges that every state…

This essay describes the process of reassessing our BW program at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in order to cultivate a more deliberate, transparent negotiation among stakeholders toward a "transcultural ethos." Informed by Bruce Horner's argument that leading-edge work on language and language difference can take place in BW, we…

"Transforming Science Assessment: Systems for Innovation," is a series of resources designed to provide state education leaders with: (1) Information about how states are currently pursuing statewide assessment systems in science; (2) Analyses of what features influence different approaches, with an eye to supporting state leaders as…

This resource is part of a series of reports about challenges facing statewide science assessments and innovative solutions states are enacting to meet those challenges. Deciding to implement a system of assessments is a critical step toward ensuring that all students are getting the high-quality science education they need--but it is also…

A domestic credit union engages in a systematic performance improvement plan to better leverage a technical application within its organization. By engaging stakeholders early in the process, standardizing the organization's nomenclature, and building strategic partnerships, the credit union was able to achieve both quantitative and qualitative…

According to an American Association of School Administrators survey, 6 percent of school districts closed or consolidated schools during the 2008-2009 school year, double the rate of the previous year. Another 11 percent are considering school closings or consolidations in 2010-2011. In the 1980's, declining enrollments were the main reason for…