A critical component of environmental education is to ensure student understanding and use of available technologies to better experience and analyze spatially distributed features of the environment. Combining mobile technologies with geographic information systems in field data collection may provide a unique opportunity for students to feel…

From 2016 through 2019, 10 states strengthened their career readiness systems through the New Skills for Youth initiative (NSFY), a $75 million national investment by JPMorgan Chase & Co. to enhance state efforts to increase the number of learners across the country who are prepared for success in both college and career. As part of this…

In this paper, the authors explore the use of learning analytics as a method for easing the cognitive demands on teachers implementing the HALF instructional model. Learning analytics has been defined as "the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts for the purposes of understanding and…

Making robust and reliable information about schools accessible is one of the most powerful ways to foster engagement and promote informed decisions that will shape our communities. Though education data is frequently collected and aggregated at the state level, data is rarely synthesized across cities. This report provides comparable information…

This document details Tennessee's participation in Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) programs and services from December 2013 through November 2014. Each member state receives a number of general services, plus access to targeted programs funded by grants, contracts and fees. Appropriations from member states support SREB's core operations…

This study provides an in-depth analysis of whether students who take dual enrollment and/or AP classes have higher ACT test scores compared to a group of their peers that did not take dual enrollment or AP courses. The study also identified the demographic characteristics (ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status) of students with a 3.0 or…

Federal education policy in recent years has encouraged state and local education agencies to embrace data use and analysis in decision-making, ranging from policy development and implementation to performance evaluation. The capacity of these agencies to make effective and methodologically sound use of collected data for these purposes remains an…

This mixed-methods study focuses on school improvement planning in middle schools in east Tennessee. Utilizing the improvement plans of 17 middle schools and surveys that were administered to 493 teachers and 35 administrators, this study found that there was (A) an overemphasis on academic goals, (B) an overreliance on the use of…

The transition into high school is a critical point in the educational pipeline, and ninth-grade can be characterized as one of its leakiest junctures. This policy brief examines how some states and districts are currently easing the transition into high school for students. It focuses on five key challenges that states, districts and schools…

This study describes (a) potential mathematics education leaders' professional development experiences, awareness, beliefs, and attitudes and (b) the subsequent changes in these constructs as they participated in a leadership development program. The context of the professional development was a three-week institute and a year-long follow-up. The…