Betsy DeVos, the new U.S. secretary of education, is a strong proponent of allowing public education dollars to go to private schools through vouchers, which enable parents to use public school money to enroll their children in private schools, including religious ones. Vouchers are advanced under the rubric of "school choice"--the…

This paper examines the effectiveness of adding an online component to the general chemistry laboratory in which students view prelaboratory instructional materials through online videos prior to completing general chemistry laboratory activities. Using a quasi-experimental design, we compared the performance of 1089 general chemistry students who…

Community colleges continue to increase their efforts to better serve students who enter their institutions with limited basic math, reading, or writing skills. In 2015, MDRC partnered with the Texas Coordinating Higher Education Board on a study to examine how colleges implemented state guidelines for students scoring below ninth-grade…

This report explores the impact of schools and other settings working with families to improve learning and achievement. It identifies the key features of highly-effective practice in engaging families in learning and provides examples of quality family learning which are helping to secure better outcomes for children and young people. The case…

Despite their best efforts, community colleges continue to see low rates of student persistence and degree attainment. Although such outcomes can be attributed in large part to students' lack of academic readiness, nonacademic issues also play a part. Building on Karp's 2011 framework of nonacademic support, this chapter explores the evidence that…

This article is part of a Bridgespan Group research project that focuses on a new wave of district-led "innovation zones" that holds promise to overcome the challenges of turning around failing schools and deliver significant improvements in student outcomes. This new wave provides a subset of district schools with control over staffing,…

This paper examines the impact of a novel assessment technique that has been used to improve the feedback given to second year Computer Science students at the University of Nottingham. Criteria for effective, high quality feedback are discussed. An automated marking system (The Marker's Apprentice--TMA) produces instant feedback in synergy with…

Recognizing that tuition increases can no longer be used as a safety valve to avoid dealing with the underlying issues of why costs increase so much, campuses have begun the hard work of cost containment. After sharpening priorities, sometimes making tough choices in light of those priorities, campuses are still groping for ways to wrestle costs…

The Houston Independent School District (HISD) currently offers two bilingual programs and two English as a Second Language (ESL) programs for English language learners (ELs). These programs facilitate ELs' integration into the regular school curriculum and ensure access to equal educational opportunities. Bilingual programs are offered in…

This article is part of a Bridgespan Group research project that focuses on a new wave of district-led "innovation zones" that holds promise to overcome the challenges of turning around failing schools and deliver significant improvements in student outcomes. This new wave provides a subset of district schools with control over staffing,…

Multiple-choice-questions are common in medical examinations, but guessing biases assessment results. Confidence-based-testing (CBT) integrates indicated confidence levels. It has been suggested that correctness of and confidence in an answer together indicate knowledge levels thus determining the quality of a resulting decision. We used a CBT…

This article is part of a Bridgespan Group research project that focuses on a new wave of district-led "innovation zones" that holds promise to overcome the challenges of turning around failing schools and deliver significant improvements in student outcomes. This new wave provides a subset of district schools with control over staffing,…

Students are bingeing on large amounts of information and then, in government induced bouts of vomiting otherwise known as national tests, they spew it all out. This is how Frank Coffield introduces the term Bulimia Academica, which he treats every bit as seriously as its medical counterpart. Students resort to bulimic learning to cope with a…

Although assessment has been an integral part of the development and expansion of learning communities, much of the assessment was focused on investigating student satisfaction, retention, and graduation. This chapter provides a case study illustrating one learning community's efforts to create assessments focused on student learning.

It is widely understood that school districts face significant barriers to designing and implementing sustained improvements in chronically underperforming schools. In particular, the size and complexity of urban districts pose daunting challenges to advance significant reform efforts, despite glaring need. A new wave of district-led…