According to the authors, their field has been in a constant state of change and evolution, from manual arts to vocational education to career and technical education (CTE). In a recent effort to increase academic and occupational achievement and success for all CTE students through targeted improvement plans, the state of Pennsylvania implemented…

As instructional coach at Spring Grove Area High School in Pennsylvania, the author realized that too many of the school's freshmen were becoming what one might call lost in transition; they never made it to their sophomore year. He joined with concerned teachers and counselors from the school and its feeder middle schools to create a freshman…

As one of only six states receiving a federal Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy grant, Pennsylvania has designed and implemented an innovative program that focuses on improved instruction and interventions to ensure every student is literate and graduates from high school ready for college and a career. This report describes Pennsylvania's…

Blended learning or hybrid courses that combine face-to-face and online learning are increasingly offered at colleges and universities across the United States, with growing evidence that they can enhance student learning. Their various pedagogies and technologies have prevented acceptance of a single, authoritative model for designing and…

At the request of the State of Pennsylvania, the School District of Philadelphia, in the summer of 2002, asked three for-profit firms to assume responsibility for 30 of its lowest-performing schools and it asked four nonprofit managers to assume the management of 16 other low-performing schools. A difference-in-differences analysis is used to…

The Penn-Delco School District in Pennsylvania uses a walk-through process focused on looking at student work and talking with individual students. The purpose is to ascertain what those students are able to express about their own learning. At the beginning of each year, a committee of teachers at each of the district's schools meets to identify…

This paper surveys some of the teaching methods, learning activities, and programs either proposed or already used by some Pennsylvania schools to improve their students' performance on the Educational Quality Assessment. The assessment, mandated by Pennsylvania statute, measures student achievement in ten goal areas, such as self-esteem, verbal…

This paper describes the history, characteristics, program model, activities, and evaluation results of the Pottstown Homework Center Partnership project, in Pottstown County, Pennsylvania. The goal of the program is to initiate homework centers and train volunteer tutors from the community to support the at-risk middle students by providing…