National interest in using school climate as an accountability measure makes it important to understand how school leaders view and make use of school climate data. The purpose of this study was to investigate how school and district administrators use climate data in Virginia, where a statewide school climate survey is annually administered.…

The anticipation, inclusion, responsiveness, and reflexivity (AIRR) framework (Stilgoe et al., 2013) is a novel framework that has helped those in science and technology fields shift their focus from products to the processes used to create those products. However, the framework has not been known to be applied to the development and…

Performance-based accountability systems that rank schools based on their effectiveness produce 'winners' and 'losers'. Substantial evidence has pointed to the (side)effects of these classifications, particularly in the most disadvantaged communities. Whilst previous studies have compared schools under different effectiveness categories within and…

Educational leaders at all levels must be prepared to address crises and their aftermaths. The conventional wisdom on crises and their management suggests that while crisis can originate from myriad sources, they largely proceed according to predictable stages. Our study draws from traditional and more critical literature on crisis and crisis…

The American School Counselor Association Closing-the-Gap Action Plan template is a tool created to help school counselors identify educational gaps and track interventions. We applied a transcendental, phenomenological qualitative research method to explore school counselors' use of the template to advocate for students. Our findings demonstrate…

The Agricultural Act of 2014 authorized $200 million for the development, implementation, and evaluation of pilot projects to test innovative strategies to reduce dependency on and increase employment among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants. California, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi,…

This study aimed to identify best practices for collecting and reporting state teacher supply and demand data. The study examined data systems for monitoring teacher demand and supply data, such as district position vacancies by certification area, candidate recruitment, and the performance and productivity of educator preparation programs.…

The Agricultural Act of 2014 authorized $200 million for the development, implementation, and evaluation of pilot projects to test innovative strategies to reduce dependency on and increase employment among Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants. California, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Mississippi,…

Background & Context: Accurate, reliable, and scalable measurement of classroom quality is critical to ensure that children benefit from early childhood programs. Early childhood classroom quality is most commonly measured using classroom observation tools serving multiple purposes including (1) teacher support (e.g., coaching, professional…

A master plan in higher education is developed to address the academic and workforce needs of a particular state. The master plan helps serve as the roadmap for implementation of proposed strategies to reach state goals in education and degree attainment. In Tennessee, Drive to 55 is a state-wide effort to increase the number of Tennesseans with a…

States use their accountability systems to identify low-performing schools, which can receive added support and are expected to improve. Alternative schools serve students whose needs are not met in a regular school. They often serve at-risk students who are struggling academically or behaviorally. Given this unique population, the Government…

Students often say they hate group projects, because they don't want their grade held hostage by someone else's effort (or lack thereof) and/or because they've had the experience previously of having to do other people's work for them. For the instructor, the challenge is to figure out how to provide students with the valuable lessons and learning…

Following the 1983 "A Nation at Risk" report and culminating in No Child Left Behind (NCLB), states designed and implemented accountability policies to evaluate student achievement. External assessments of these policies identified substantial variability in the level of stakes associated with each system. This paper presents a…

After nearly two decades of federal and state accountability requirements relying on conventional standardized assessments, Virginia and several other states are moving to create more balanced approaches to statewide assessment systems that include the use of performance assessments. But Palm (2008) states, "Performance assessment can mean…

In this multiple case study, we apply sense-making theory to examine and compare how middle school special and general educators perceive and respond to teacher evaluation reform, including formal classroom observations, informal walk-throughs, and student growth measures. Our findings reveal that special educators experience conflict between the…