The 42 school districts participating in the state of Washington's Inclusionary Practices Project achieved a significant 12.8% increase in inclusion in the least restrictive environment (LRE 1, or in general education for 80-100% of the school day) over four years, surpassing the state average increase of 6.8%. Katie Novak and Helene Paroff…

This research project aims to understand what elementary teachers need from internal communication systems to promote trust and engagement within their school and across the district. The data for this project was collected through a sequential mixed-method approach that included a survey of all elementary teachers in the school district, as well…

Background: Increasingly, there are calls for educational equity to explicitly include LGBTQ+ students, including the creation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) clubs, or Genders and Sexualities Alliances (GSAs), which are associated with positive outcomes for LGBTQ+ students and promote a safer school climate…

All students attending public schools should receive the best educational experience no matter their academic, social/emotional and/or physical need. School districts have a responsibility to deliver on the promise of an equitable and excellent education for all students including for those students who require more. Systemic structures, policies…

This article presents the results of a review of eight gifted programs, using the 2010 National Association for Gifted Children (NAGC) program standards as one basis for assessing the programs. Each of the six standards is reviewed in respect to the extent that programs addressed underlying indicators. Findings showed that districts met slightly…

This paper is the first to estimate the cost function of Connecticut public K-12 education and to evaluate the state's school spending based on regression-estimated education costs. It finds large disparities across districts in education costs and cost-adjusted spending. A large percentage of the state's public school students are enrolled in…

With the expansion of performance-based incentives, there is growing interest in understanding how they affect leadership quality and composition. This paper studies a reform in a large urban public school district that ties principal compensation to their performance. Using a regression discontinuity design, I investigate the effect of…

This resource from the Region 15 Comprehensive Center provides an overview of the process that the Nevada Department of Education used to refine the review process for the adoption of high-quality instructional materials. This refined process gives all districts, regardless of size or type, a choice of instructional materials that are…

Literature on problematic absenteeism in children and adolescents is diverse and dispersed across multiple disciplines, as it has long been a multifaceted and vexatious concern for psychologists, educators, and researchers (Kearney & Bates, 2005). Unfortunately, the investigation of problematic absenteeism from such diverse perspectives over…

Although school-based youth homicides and student fear of attack or harm at school have slowly decreased over the past two decades (Musu-Gillette et al., 2018), students are not free from worry; violence is still present in schools. School violence refers to acts of physical force, harm, or power that occur on school grounds or at school events…

The Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) ensures educational equity for multilingual learners through supporting school districts and charter schools to develop, implement and evaluate research-based language instruction education programs so that multilingual learners, including students with English learner status, attain academic language…

This guide provides state education agencies (SEAs) and districts (LEAs) with guidance about how to assess the district's readiness to support school turnaround initiatives. Often, school turnaround efforts focus only on the school's structure and leadership. Rarely do policymakers or practitioners think about school turnaround as a system-level…

PreK-12 districts are currently considering multiple options for the 2020-21 school year and beyond. Recent guidance from the Centers for Disease Control lists the many safeguards that would need to be in place before buildings reopen and students are back to classrooms that resemble what they had before. It is clear that some type of distance…

Purpose: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represents a notable shift in K-12 accountability, requiring a more comprehensive approach to assessing school performance and a less prescriptive approach to intervening in low-performing schools. In this article, we seek to leverage the experiences of California's CORE (California Office to Reform…

In recent years, there has been an increase in paraeducator supports, in large part because students with low incidence disabilities are being included more frequently in general education settings. As a result, special education teachers have been given additional supervisory responsibilities related to directing the work of paraeducators in…