Promoting Adolescents' Comprehension of Text (PACT) is a text- and discourse-based set of instructional practices that engage students with disciplinary texts as a means of building content knowledge and improving reading comprehension. PACT)s "efficacy" has been the subject of extensive previous trials. The purpose of this study was to…

Uncommon Schools is a nonprofit charter management organization that starts and manages public charter schools, primarily in traditionally underserved communities. As part of a 2016 grant awarded to Uncommon from the U.S. Department of Education's Charter Schools Program to support replication and expansion of its school model, we conducted a…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe the design and user testing of GeoForge, a multiple-player digital learning experience for middle school that leverages virtual reality (VR) and individualized websites for learning concepts in planetary science. This paper investigates how specific instructional design choices and features of the technology…

This study explores misperceptions about peer norms in support of telling authorities about weapons at school and whether perceptions predict personal support for telling authorities. Anonymous surveys were conducted among youth in 30 schools (Grades 5-12) in six states (n = 12,903) between 2006 and 2014. Personal support for telling principals,…

Academic achievement in the nation's lowest performing schools is troubling. Despite improvements in students' overall academic achievement over the past few decades, proficiency gaps in reading and mathematics remain across income, racial, and ethnic groups. One promising strategy for reducing achievement gaps is to expand the school day, often…

This study looks deeply inside 17 schools that stand at the vanguard of the current revolution in teaching. This new National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) report reveals the substantive ways in which these schools are providing their teachers with more time to reflect on, develop, and hone their craft, by very explicitly leveraging an…

Background: Given that adolescent bullying victimization is a significant concern for secondary education and adolescent development, identifying school contexts in which victimization is most likely to occur is salient. Methods: An anonymous online survey assessed the prevalence of being harassed or bullied in various locations within 20 middle…

The Afterschool Alliance, in partnership with MetLife Foundation, is proud to present the first in their latest series of four issue briefs examining critical issues facing middle school youth and the vital role afterschool programs play in addressing these issues. This series explores afterschool and: the Common Core State Standards, students…

The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is a rapidly expanding network of public charter schools whose mission is to improve the education of low-income children. As of the 2012-2013 school year, 125 KIPP schools are in operation in 20 different states and the District of Columbia (DC). Ultimately, KIPP's goal is to prepare students to enroll and…

In school districts across the nation, diverse student groups, including English Learners and students with disabilities, have been experiencing significant gains in reading performance after using READ 180. This compendium of READ 180 research contains results of 40 studies conducted in a variety of settings, in school districts across the…

As part of state transitions to college- and career-ready (CCR) standards, including the Common Core State Standards in more than 40 states (NGA & CCSSO, 2010), states are for the first time administering new summative assessments aligned to those standards and aiming for a higher bar in assessment quality. For a majority of states, this means…

Schoolwide support for higher achievement is essential. Students need a nurturing environment where they feel secure about learning, where the goal is success for every student and where students are confident they will receive mentoring and encouragement to prepare for their futures. Many schools are reinventing themselves to motivate students to…

This report provides a new resource for understanding the state of urban public schools in the U.S. Geared specifically toward city leaders who want to evaluate how well traditional district and charter schools are serving all their city's children and how their schools compare to those in other cities, the report measures outcomes for all public…

Middle school, which is generally thought of as sixth to eighth grades, is not easy for anybody. It is a rough time to be a student, and a tough age to teach. Teachers are expected to ease the transition of students from elementary to middle school. However, if you are an elementary teacher, you may not know what kids will be facing in middle…

Many science centers have partnerships with schools, universities or scientific industry. This article will describe a unique collaborative project between Liberty Science Center, Wagner College, and Picatinny Center (a government research center) that has college interns working with and learning from science center staff and real scientists in a…