A number of states have taken steps toward promoting student wellness, with many of their state boards of education in the middle of the action. This article contains some examples of states leading on student wellness by addressing physical fitness, social and emotional learning (SEL), and mental health supports. The Every Student Succeeds Act…

The author describes how Virginia Beach City Public Schools developed a performance assessment that they administer to all 4th graders, 7th graders, and high school students in the district. He describes lessons learned about creating good performance tasks and developing a successful scoring process, as well as sharing tools connected to this…

The purpose of this report is to demonstrate the power of connecting Children's Savings Account (CSAs) to college access-success programs and show that, when done together, they produce greater outcomes. First, we briefly describe these closely related fields and explain the merit of partnerships between CSA initiatives and college access and…

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is committed to providing partners with useful tools to help make inferences from the Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) interim assessment scores. Recently, NWEA completed a concordance study to connect the scales of the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) reading and math tests with those of the MAP…

Students with disabilities have traditionally achieved to a lesser degree than have their nondisabled peers. Since the 1950s the federal government has enacted laws to provide free, appropriate public education to students with disabilities. In the first decade of the 21st; Century the government has produced legislation requiring schools to be…

In the current state of social studies education, field trips are being cut from many schools' curriculum. While not a true substitution, today's technologies provide some opportunities through virtual field trips (VFTs) to simulate these experiences, engage students in knowledge production and disciplined inquiry, and have interactions with the…

This report describes an instructional package designed to replace a set of unsatisfactory textbooks used to teach State history, government, and geography to 4th-, 7th-, 11th-, and 12th-grade students in Virginia. The format of the package, taking what is described as the "inquiry approach", revolves around a series of short television…

In 1978 the Commonwealth of Virginia initiated a three-year plan to develop basal fourth- and seventh-grade Virginia studies materials utilizing the resources of public and private institutions. The plan involved three stages: planning (1978-79), materials development (1979-80), and field testing and revision (1980-81). This document reviews the…

This document reviews the goals and accomplishments of phase two of a three-year project to develop state-studies materials for Virginia schools. It is presented in seven chapters. Chapter I introduces the project idea, reviews the first phase of planning and evaluation design, and explains the project goals for phase two, materials development.…

The third and final phase of a three-year project to develop state-studies materials for Virginia is described in this report. The third phase involved continued pilot testing of fourth-grade materials, development of drafts of seventh-grade materials, and exploration of plans for dissemination. The report comprises six chapters. Chapter 1 reviews…