Districts across the country, including some of the nation's largest, are facing a spate of superintendent vacancies. Schools chiefs or interim superintendents will be leaving this year or next in at least 17 well-known districts, including Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Clark County, Nevada; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Wake County,…

This article describes a comprehensive strategy for developing a larger corps of effective principals, "The Principal Pipeline Initiative," launched by the Wallace Foundation in 2011. Its purpose is working to strengthen school leadership by documenting and evaluating leadership development in six urban districts (Charlotte-Mecklenburg…

The STEM Achievement in Baltimore Elementary Schools (SABES) program is a community partnership initiative that includes both in-school and afterschool STEM education for grades 3-5. It was designed to broaden participation and achievement in STEM education by bringing science and engineering to the lives of low-income urban elementary school…

School district officials have faced the urgent task in recent years of ensuring that all schools, not just a lucky few, benefit from sure-footed leadership by professionals who know how to focus on instruction and improve it. The question boils down to this: How can districts develop a pipeline of great school principals? Research about a Wallace…

School district officials have faced the urgent task in recent years of ensuring that all schools, not just a lucky few, benefit from sure-footed leadership by professionals who know how to focus on instruction and improve it. The question boils down to this: How can districts develop a pipeline of great school principals? Research about a Wallace…

This article profiles William Hite, Jr., a longtime educator and administrator, who began his career more than two decades ago as a high school athletic coach. Hite says his biggest passion is educating young people. And one of the best ways to serve students, he says, is by listening. Hite, 51, assumed his duties as Philadelphia's new…

As of summer 2012, there are 31 interdistrict magnet schools in the Greater Hartford region of Connecticut, including those at The Learning Corridor (a 14-acre compound with roughly 1,570 students in attendance among an elementary, middle, and two high schools), enrolling about 13,000 students and supported by a mix of state, local, and…

The Baltimore City Public Schools made national headlines late last year when the district adopted a new contract designed to take student learning and teacher professionalism to the next level. The three-year deal replaced conventional approaches to compensation--regular pay increases based on years in the system--with a new approach that gives…

Some of the students at Success Academy are doing International Baccalaureate-level work. Most of the classes have just five or six students. But this Baltimore public high school isn't for elite students. Admission depends on whether students have done something so serious a regular district school won't have them anymore: assaulting classmates…

Recognizing the importance of both keeping middle school students engaged and improving their math skills, Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) developed a summer school STEM program involving not only math and science instruction but also the experience of building a robot and competing with those robots in a city-wide tournament.…

A new data analysis, based on data collected as part of The Broad Prize process, provides insights into which large urban school districts in the United States are doing the best job of educating traditionally disadvantaged groups: African-American, Hispanics, and low-income students. Since 2002, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation has awarded The…

Schools in Maryland and Connecticut are rethinking suspension policies and practices. They are finding that promoting positive behavior choices rather than punishing the negative is leading to higher graduation rates, especially among students of color. In the 2003-2004 academic year, Baltimore City Public Schools recorded 26,000 suspensions. Six…

Four years ago, the University of Maryland (UM) Board of Regents responded to the national crisis in the college experience--the high incidence of student failure and dropout, the cost of a college degree, and the number of years it was taking to earn one--by contracting with Dr. Carol A. Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic…

Schools in Maryland and Connecticut are rethinking suspension policies and practices. They are finding that promoting positive behavior choices rather than punishing the negative is leading to higher graduation rates, especially among students of color. In the 2003-2004 academic year, Baltimore City Public Schools recorded 26,000 suspensions. Six…

This paper presents the highlights of a conference entitled "Advancing Student Achievement through Labor-Management Collaboration" held in Denver, Colorado last February 15-16, 2011. This first-of-its-kind conference on labor-management collaboration is a historic effort to transform the relationships among local superintendents, school…