This qualitative case study highlights a university-school district partnership, RISE, to increase the number of Spanish-English speaking teachers in one Georgia county by covering students' tuitions and hiring them as part-time paraprofessionals as they become certified educators. Our goal with RISE (Realizing Inspiring and Successful Educators)…

This paper describes the outcomes and key elements of collaborative professional development on K-12 educators working to improve education of Latino and English learning students in a state with rapidly changing demographics. Across four years (2003-04 through 2006-07), 37 teams from 16 urban, suburban, and rural school districts in the state of…

Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) researchers visited 38 public high schools around the United States in 2007 and 2008 with the goal of validating and operationalizing a definition of college readiness. Schools in the sample were selected because they were demonstrating success at enabling more students from underrepresented groups to…

Rural economic development requires local consensus and a coordinated effort by community leaders and the public at large. In 12 rural Georgia counties, the University of Georgia is implementing a Rural Revitalization Initiative (RRI) that emphasizes collaboration of public officials and private individuals across disciplines, professions,…

In recent years, service programs targeted for Georgia's rural communities have decreased proportionately in relation to those intended for the state's rapidly expanding population centers. At the same time, erosion of traditional manufacturing industries and an adverse agricultural economy have decreased the ability of rural communities to…

The approach of Georgia's career education program is one in which the state leadership serves first as a catalyst in stimulating local educators to re-examine the educational needs of their students, and second, as a source of assistance to local educators as they think through, within the context of their local environments, the changes they…

Since 1985 the Southeast Regional Troubled Children's Committee (SERTCC) has formed local committees and promoted interagency collaboration to serve troubled children and their families in 24 counties in southeast Georgia. SERTCC provides intensive family-based services within the homes of dysfunctional families for 12 weeks, with the goal of…

One approach by the state of Georgia to ensure equal educational opportunity for all children has been to organize a method whereby several school systems within an identified geographical region may share services they cannot afford to provide individually. By legislative action in 1972, provisions for Cooperative Educational Service Agency…

Included in this proceedings is a schedule of activities and the text of addresses made at a one-day institute for educators. Dr. Asa Hilliard of Georgia State University delivered the keynote address, which focused on the power of teaching to make a difference. Ten additional topics were addressed in four subsequent sessions. Papers given in the…

This paper describes the joint participation of P-12 schools and Georgia Southern University in preparing prospective teachers, revealing innovations that reflect cooperative development and administration of these endeavors. Georgia Southern University's College of Education developed and funded three roles for P-12 participants: site-based…

A collaborative effort between a high school principal and researcher to identify a successful principal's school improvement agenda and practices is described in this report of one of four case studies. Methodology involved indepth interviews with the principal and surveys of 10 teachers to compare their perceptions of teacher/principal…

The superintendent of the Bibb County, Georgia, Public School System devised a program to develop a cadre of competent administrators to assume leadership positions as they became vacant. The Leadership Development Program took 18 classroom teachers with administrative aspirations and provided them with a variety of experiences under the guidance…

This collection of papers describes the interagency collaboration of Georgia agencies that serve students with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD). The first paper, "Overview and State Perspective" (P. Paulette Bragg and Phillip H. Pickens), describes the problems facing Georgia by placing students with EBD in state hospitals, private…

This paper describes a school-based professional development project for elementary teachers where all teachers from the school and university mathematics educators regularly met to share and plan mathematics teaching strategies for the school's diverse student body. Analysis of data from focus group interviews with participating teachers revealed…

The Georgia League of Professional Schools is a school and university collaborative formed to support school renewal. It currently includes 54 elementary and secondary schools and the University of Georgia. Schoolwide action research is simply cooperative disciplined inquiry within a framework that provides some structures for working together.…