This book presents some of the leading technical, professional, and political challenges associated with the development and implementation of teacher evaluation systems, along with characterizing some of these systems in different countries around the world. The book promotes a broader comprehension of the complexities associated with this kind…

Demographic changes promise to reshape the market for higher education in the next 15 years. Colleges are already grappling with the consequences of declining family size due to low birth rates brought on by the Great Recession, as well as the continuing shift toward minority student populations. Each institution faces a distinct market context…

This timely book will help policymakers and practitioners convert their visions of high-quality early education into on-the-ground reality by providing a much-needed, richly detailed look at how states can design, fund, and manage exemplary programs. The authors describe and analyze how four states--Michigan, West Virginia, Washington, and North…

Undergraduate research has a rich history, and many practicing researchers point to undergraduate research experiences (UREs) as crucial to their own career success. There are many ongoing efforts to improve undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education that focus on increasing the active engagement of students…

New American Schools (NAS) was formed in 1991 to create and develop whole-school designs that would be adopted by schools throughout the country in order to improve student performance. This book is a retrospective on NAS and draws together the finding from RAND research. Chapter 1, the introduction, gives an overview of NAS, RAND's purpose and…

Based on pioneering work at a school in Sheffield, England, this book explores the universal issues of access and inclusion in employment and education for children and young people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). It describes the challenges educators faced in establishing and running an integrated resource room for children with ASD within…

This book is a proposal for the Strategic Education Research Partnership (SERP), a large-scale coherent program of research and development carried out through a partnership between researchers and practitioners. The program would put the problems of educational practice at its center and focus on carrying research and development through all the…

Business leaders created New American Schools (NAS) to develop "break-the-mold" designs for schools serving grades K-12. The notion of a design was meant to convey a coherent and comprehensive set of school-level practices that unified a school behind a goal of high performance by all students. These practices would cover all grades, all students…

This book is designed as both a methods text and practical guide for school districts and teachers involved in foreign language instruction at the elementary and middle school levels (grades K-8). Its primary concern is with majority-language speakers and with beginning-level classes. Brief introductory sections outline key concepts for success.…

The National Research Council formed a Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism and charged the committee with integrating the scientific, theoretical, and policy literature and creating a framework for evaluating the scientific evidence concerning the effects and features of educational interventions for young children with…