The Crumpton School District (CSD) is a high performing school district in suburban Philadelphia that has expended a great deal of energy and work to close gaps in the achievement of its Black students. Despite these efforts, 2016 standardized test data reflect a reading achievement gap of 28 percentage points for Black boys attending four of the…

School districts shape the conditions in which schools operate and as such can support or undermine school success and thus student success. All of which is to say that school districts matter. This article looks at the success of two districts whose low-income and minority students beat the odds in academic achievement. Lessons from these…

During the school year leading up to summer 2015, summer leaders in Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Rochester made concerted efforts to integrate their summer learning programs into the core priorities and operations of the larger school district as a strategy to increase sustainability. This report examines these efforts and their impacts. The…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the length of tenure of a superintendent and academic achievement as defined by the percentage of students who scored "Proficient" or better on the 2008 Third Grade Kansas Reading Assessment. To put this relationship into context, five other predictive…

Leading change to create an integrated PreK-3rd education and connect early learning programs with the K-12 system is not easy. Superintendents require courage to take the first step, persistence and political skills to encourage organizational and community engagement, and a relentless focus on results to measure progress and build momentum. As a…

In this article, the author describes how an Oregon district redefines coaching roles to find a balance between school and district goals. As director of improvement for North Clackamas School District in Milwaukie, Oregon, near Portland, the author's role of coaching the coach was new, and the coaches welcomed the immediate feedback. Through the…

In an effort to understand teachers' and administrators' experiences with public school accountability, Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), with the support of the Noyce Foundation, established the Educator Responses to Accountability Project (ERAP). During the 2002-2003 school year, the authors conducted in-depth interviews with…