Policymakers are recognizing that Pennsylvania has fallen behind in providing equitable access to high quality early childhood education. Governor Tom Wolf ran on a campaign promise of universal pre-k access and proposed an unprecedented budget increase for early childhood programs in 2016. In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney has made pre-k a…

Faced with rising demand for information about early childhood programs, states need to find tools and strategies to monitor the progress of and to identify high-quality early childhood programs. In response, REL Mid-Atlantic convened a regional workgroup for state personnel who work with the systems containing early childhood data. The workgroup…

The Urban Development Component at Research for Better Schools, Inc., attempted to attack problems facing urban secondary schools in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania by using the "natural channels" of educational and civic associations to disseminate research and development information and to work collaboratively toward improving…

Considerations in the design and implementation of the technical assistance (TA) system for supporting Pennsylvania's statewide school improvement initiative are analyzed. After a brief introduction, the authors describe the key features of the initiative, called Long-Range Planning for School Improvement (LRPSI). They briefly review recent…

The National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) documents dimensions of quality in undergraduate education and provides information and assistance to colleges, universities, and other organizations to improve student learning. Its primary activity is annually surveying college students to assess the extent to which they engage in educational…

This project provided adult educators in Pennsylvania with information about adults with learning differences and training in the use of alternative instructional techniques. Although the majority of training was conducted through presentations, many more adult educators were affected by the project through the information provided in the Learning…

This document comprises the final report of the Regional Exchange project, through which Research for Better Schools (RBS) has provided research-based information, technical assistance, and training services to the states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, to assist state educational leaders in developing and implementing…

Focusing on the promotion of reform and knowledge use in school districts, this paper reports on data from a study investigating assistance and enforcement strategies adopted by three types of regional educational service agencies. Assistance in this context means provision of legal or program knowledge needed to operate successful programs.…

The Tuscarora Intermediate Unit Adult Education and Job Training Center planned, coordinated, delivered, and evaluated a 2-day institute on organizational change and improvement. The 85 agency staff members who attended the institute received an orientation to organizational change and improvement based on the latest theory and methodologies but…