District leaders in a large urban school district in central Florida wanted to test the efficacy of a new curriculum designed to enhance the word knowledge of grade 5 students so as to improve reading achievement. The new curriculum, called Word Knowledge Instruction (WKI), consists of 15-minute lessons taught 4 days a week for 20 weeks. The…

Student performance on standardized tests in Louisiana has trailed national averages for decades. In the 2017 8th-grade reading results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Louisiana public schools tied for 42nd in the nation and rated significantly higher than only one jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. Only 25 percent of…

This article features interview excerpts from 10 Black women who worked as educators in marketized cities and schools, including urban charter schools operated by charter management organizations, and independent schools, known as standalone charter schools. Using a critical race policy framework, the article considers the pedagogical implications…

This study snapshot highlights key findings from a study that examined who earns biliteracy seals in a large urban district in New Mexico and how they impact college outcomes. New Mexico is one of 48 states that offer a biliteracy seal to high school graduates to recognize their proficiency in a non-English language. The Regional Educational…

This executive summary describes the larger study, "Teacher Preparation Experiences and Early Teaching Effectiveness. NCEE 2019-4007" (ED598664). This study provides information about new teachers' preparation experiences and explores whether particular types of experiences are related to teachers' effectiveness in improving their…

The 13 appendices in this publication accompany the full report, "Teacher Preparation Experiences and Early Teaching Effectiveness. NCEE 2019-4007" (ED598664). They include: (1) Teacher Survey Response Rates by District/State; (2) Comparison of the Subsample Used for Relational Analyses and the Full Sample; (3) Development of the Teacher…

Getting a large, urban school district to use standards-based education and standards-based grading is challenging. Doing so in one year is monumental. During the 2009-10 school year, Omaha (NE) Public Schools began to study the feasibility of making changes to its traditional grading system. The more closely district personnel investigated the…

This brief summarizes the findings of a recent study that examined whether adding results from teacher and student feedback surveys to one district's principal evaluation system strengthened the link between principals' evaluation ratings and their schools' achievement gains in math and reading. The study also examined whether certain subscales…

Research has been showing that the most important development in K-12 education over the past decade has been the emergence of a growing number of urban schools that have been convincingly shown to have dramatic positive effects on the achievement of disadvantaged students. Those with the strongest evidence of success are oversubscribed charter…

For more than a century, urban public schools have provided economic opportunities through education to some of the nation's largest, most diverse, and neediest populations. By embracing these challenges, our nation's urban schools have provided the know-how and backbone upon which our cities have grown and thrived. In this report, the Council of…

The Broad Foundation Superintendents Academy is the most prominent and most controversial training institute for school chiefs. The Academy is the flagship program of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the smallest of a triumvirate of corporate foundations that are at the heart of the billionaire campaign to remake public education in the image…

School districts across the country are struggling with whether--and how--to incorporate multiple measures into teacher evaluation systems. In the District of Columbia, however, the decision has already been made. The D.C. IMPACT system, originally developed under former Chancellor Michelle Rhee, is a rigid, numerically based teacher evaluation…

Preparation for college and careers begins when students are young, yet, it can be difficult for middle grade educators to know how best to prepare these students for future success. Middle grade practitioners need to know what to pay attention to and who needs additional support. Without knowing how to identify students who are on-track for high…

Policy Matters Ohio looked at schools rated the highest over a two-year period in each of Ohio's eight largest urban districts. State, school, and district data were used to examine schools--district-run and charter--that were rated Excellent or higher for either the 2010-11 or the 2011-12 school year or both. The number of schools examined ranged…

Pascal D. Forgione Jr., who has been the superintendent of the Austin Independent School District since August 1999, will retire in June. In the rough-and-tumble world of the urban superintendency, such long tenures are a relative rarity. As he prepares to leave the stage, Pat Forgione is being praised locally and nationally for his leadership in…