Purpose: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Next Generation Courseware Challenge (NGCC) in 2014 to address the limited availability of affordable, high-quality adaptive courseware to postsecondary students. SRI International was retained to evaluate the NGCC initiative as a whole and to conduct impact studies for the NGCC…

This policy brief examines standards-based approaches that hold promise for shaping a common vision of skilled teaching commensurate with the national goal of preparing all students for college and careers. Numerous studies confirm that teachers are the most significant school-based factor in improving student achievement, particularly for the…

This report describes Maryland's latest approaches to dealing with restructuring schools and other schools in NCLB improvement. Information for this report was obtained between September 2008 and January 2009 from interviews with Maryland State Department of Education officials and with administrators in three Maryland districts: Anne Arundel…

K-8 centers combine grades in one location or school that are usually assigned to a separate elementary (K-5) and middle school (6-8). In 1998 the School Board of Miami-Dade County, Florida, approved a pilot program to introduce to the district the concept of K-8 centers. Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) initiated two K-8 centers during…

The idea for the Intergroup Dialogue as Pedagogy Across the Curriculum (INTERACT) Pilot Project emerged, quite organically, from the cross-pollination of two major initiatives of the Office of Human Relations Programs (OHRP), the equity compliance and multicultural education arm of the Office of the President at the University of Maryland, College…

A two-year pilot study evaluated a curriculum innovation at one rural and one urban high school in Maryland. Called the Community-Based Learning and Service (CBLS) Program, the innovation involved placing large numbers of students during part of the school day with community sponsors where they could learn about and provide community services as…

As one of a number of pilot projects to test the concept of using community and resource development Extension agents and paraprofessionals to help citizens and public officials interact and deal with controversial issues confronting their communities, the Citizens Education Project worked with citizens in selected communities of the five counties…