A vast gulf in academic achievement separates public schools in Washington, D.C.'s poorest neighborhoods from those in its most affluent. Achievement Prep, which serves 4th-8th graders in D.C.'s impoverished 8th Ward, is an outlier. Yet in 2011, 60% of Achievement Prep's "scholars" scored proficient or advanced in reading on the DC-CAS…

"This is the piece that's been missing." This reaction is common among educators engaged in AIW Iowa, an initiative that engages teachers and administrators in professional learning communities that are improving student achievement, increasing student engagement, and building a schoolwide professional culture focused on improving…

A challenge that professional development coordinators and instructional leaders face is designing and implementing professional development that is the most effective for improving teaching and learning in their school. To determine what is the perceptions and beliefs of elementary teachers' value of and responses to their professional…

This case study of one middle school focuses on improving teachers' skills in data-driven decision making through analysis of student work and their own professional practice. The expectation that schools will make adequate yearly progress has pushed evaluation practice down to the teacher level, where teachers are asked to analyze and…