Professional Learning Communities are an important means toward the goal of improving schools so that students can learn at high levels. Professional Learning Communities, when well-implemented, have a laser-focus on learning, work collaboratively, and hold themselves accountable for results. In this article, the central concept of…

Students need to have a basic understanding of research methods before obtaining a communication degree in order to become an intelligent consumer of research--someone who is able to read, understand, explain, and critically evaluate communication and other research reported in scholarly journals as well as in the popular press. These skills are…

The authors of this article write that, as college teachers, they continue to confront their own timidity, and fear of risk. They have had to ask themselves when, in lip service to academic rigor, they are just taking the safe way out. They say that they worry at times while admonishing students to think for themselves, come up with new ideas, and…

In a project-based learning approach, students work over an extended time period for a purpose beyond satisfying a school requirement--to build something, to create something, to respond to a question they have, to solve a real problem, or to address a real need. For example, students might work to plan, plant, and cultivate a garden to help feed…

The best hope for accelerating much needed improvement in student achievement is by using a range of pedagogical and technological innovations that deliver personalized learning to each student. The authors examine three school initiatives across the country that are using technology and new teaching methods successfully to drive student…

As states move to implement the Common Core State Standards, key challenges remain. One is how to make sure a high school diploma acknowledges what students have achieved. Should states adopt a two tiered diploma, in which students who pass internationally aligned Common Core exams at a career- and college-ready level receive an…

In spite of Tea Party criticism, union skepticism, and anti-testing outcries, the campaign to implement Common Core State Standards (otherwise known as Common Core) has achieved phenomenal success in statehouses across the country. Since 2011, 45 states have raised their standards for student proficiency in reading and math, with the greatest…

Every day, teachers and administrators come to work and do the best job they know how. In the book "School Systems That Learn" (Ash & D'Auria, 2013), the authors argue that most school systems, as they are currently designed, have reached or nearly reached the limits of their capacity and that systemic change is necessary to…

This article reports on a multi-site global, ethnographic, and mixed methods study on student engagement. Our research has closely examined how engagement and disengagement operate subtly, simultaneously and relationally in the places and spaces where drama is made. Through years of qualitative time in high school classrooms and two different…

Kathy Schofield explains how the Primary Science Teaching Trust (PSTT) came into being and how it continues to enhance science for primary teachers and children. The Primary Science Teaching Trust provides financial assistance to help improve the learning and teaching of science in the U.K. The Trust was established in April 1997 as an independent…

The Data Quality Campaign and the National School Boards Association's Center for Public Education prepared this document to help school board members respond to questions about education data, explain its importance to improving school and student performance, and understand how boards can help ensure student privacy.

Value-added analysis is the most robust, statistically significant method available for helping educators quantify student progress over time. This powerful tool also reveals tangible strategies for improving instruction. Built around the work of Battelle for Kids, this book provides a field-tested continuous improvement model for using…

Studies have substantiated the link between proper nutrition and success in the classroom and beyond. Research has also found that eating breakfast is associated with improved classroom behavior and higher math, reading, and standardized test scores. Manatee County, Florida offers free breakfast to all students in 14 schools. Many students arrive…

For educators to be successful in ensuring that students are college-and career-ready, they must have high-quality professional learning. This article describes how the foundation and guidance for evaluating the impact of professional learning can be enhanced with the "Standards for Professional Learning Tool" (Learning Forward, 2011).…

For years, points out David L. Kirp, critics have lambasted public schools as fossilized bureaucracies run by paper-pushers and filled with time-serving teachers preoccupied with their job security, not the lives of their students. Yet, as this article describes, running an exemplary school system does not demand heroes or heroics, just hard and…