This technical appendix provides additional information about the sample, data, and estimation strategy used for a series of American Educator Panels (AEP) Data Notes published by the RAND Corporation in 2019. The Data Note series is intended to provide brief but incisive analyses of teacher and school leader survey results that may be of…

Because standards-based reform emphasizes improved teaching as the best path to increased learning and improved student performance, one would expect high performing schools to be implementing effective professional development practices. This study examines professional development practices in high performing urban and persistently low achieving…

The authors sought to determine if an urban school district's effort to fundamentally change teaching, assessment, and intervention practices increased student achievement and decreased achievement variation among classrooms in 11 high schools. They examined Grade 11 mathematics achievement data from the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 Kentucky Core…

Keith Look, Shawnee High School principal, must steer his 82-year-old high school on the far west side of Louisville, Kentucky, through an aggressive, federally mandated effort to reverse a decades-long decline in student achievement that has given Shawnee the label of one of Kentucky's worst schools. He is one soldier in an army of principals…

Many students will need remedial work in mathematics during their high school years. Some sort of help will be needed to fulfill the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' (NCTM's) (2000) vision of a mathematics classroom that involves students having access to mathematically rich problems and being engaged in solving them. The high school…

The Early College High School (ECHS) initiative developed in response to calls to significantly decrease the number of first-generation college and underserved students of color and from poverty who are high school dropouts or marginally graduates (i.e., ill prepared for college). The ECHS model is different from other educational reforms in that…

Drawing on court records, state archival information, and local school district reports, this project examined student diversity and teacher diversity over more than five decades in an urban school district established in 1974 by court mandate. This study especially focused on the impact of a ratio set by the federal court regarding the high…

Improving the literacy skills of struggling high school readers remains one of the greatest challenges educators face today. Students who are two or more years behind grade level in their language arts skills have little chance of successfully completing a rigorous program of studies in high school and are the most likely to drop out. Accelerating…

Every step in a student's life is important for future success. Schools are building stronger frameworks of curricula, instruction and assessments to prepare students to move from one learning environment to another with maximum results as they journey toward adulthood. This issue of "High Schools That Work" contains examples of…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) "Nation's Report Card": Reading Scores Flat for Fourth Graders; Eighth Graders Improve by One Point; (2)…

This descriptive report is part of a broader project collecting, organizing, and analyzing multiple sources of data from the four-state REL Appalachia region, comprised of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The purposes of that broader project are: (1) to increase awareness of and understanding about critical education issues in the…

Background/Context: In light of the June 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Louisville and Seattle voluntary school desegregation cases, making it more difficult for district officials to racially balance their schools, this article presents an analysis of prior research on the long-term effects of attending racially diverse schools on their…

This study analyzes the non-academic impact of a program for at-risk students within an urban alternative high school. The Jefferson County Public Schools, Kentucky, work on the premise that prevention is a key part of safety net strategies for at-risk students. Liberty High School is an alternative safety net high school intended to develop a…

Emerging research suggests that providing personal computers to students, in combination with a constructivist teaching approach, holds promise for significant gains in student achievement. As we begin a process of using one-on-one learning with laptop computers in a large urban district, it is important to share information concerning the design,…

The major objectives of the projects reported are to reduce dropouts, to decrease suspensions, to increase attendance rate, to increase reading and math achievement, to decrease disciplinary referrals, and to improve self-concept. Three project components are instructional, including personalized instruction in English, mathematics, social…