It is encouraging to see increasing attention to improving interventions in fields such as mental health, public health, and education. This includes the growing emphasis on transferring evidence-based interventions into practice. The trend continues to be stimulated and supported by the high priority endorsement of federal, state, and local…

Increasing attention to "Implementation Research" and the "Implementation Problem" has given rise to confusion about matters such as the role of "empirically-supported practices," "fidelity of implementation," and "monitoring fidelity of implementation." To clarify the matters, we approach these topics from the broad perspective of efforts to…

Blueprints for education reform have become trendy. Over the last few years, President Obama, governors, chief state school officers, local superintendents' associations, policy institutes, foundations, and business leaders have formulated such documents to guide school improvement. This brief highlights: (1) the focus of current blueprints; (2)…

This brief underscores the need to rethink the proliferation of school teams, work groups, and committees. While such mechanisms are essential to enhancing school improvement, they must be designed in a delimited way to carry out fundamental functions and must be fully integrated with each other. From a functional perspective, because of current…

The ongoing dilemma for those expected to improve schools is how to meet our society's basic aims for public education in ways that level the playing field. The dilemma is exacerbated by the need to do more with less. This brief approaches these matters in the context of three direct functions that are essential to school improvement: (1)…

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) were developed as part of a broader effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop common state standards in key subjects. Released in 2010, the CCSSM are intended to provide a blueprint for the…

This report uses the three-component framework to categorize and synthesize major recommendations to Congress for the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) reauthorization and briefly analyzes them from the perspective of the third component. The analysis illuminates fundamental gaps in the prevailing recommendations. In particular, this…

This report continues a series analyzing proposals and blueprints for transforming schools from the perspective of how well they delineate ways to enable equity of opportunity for "all" students to succeed at school. The focus of this report is on the July 2010 draft of CCSSO's (Council of Chief State School Office's) "Model Core Teaching…

As Secretary Arne Duncan recognizes, turning around schools that are not doing well is a formidable task. It is also a task about which many ambiguities and controversies swirl. Given all the uncertainties associated with turning around, transforming, and continuously improving schools, it is essential to keep analyzing deficiencies in blueprints…

In May, Congresswoman Judy Chu issued a report entitled: "Strengthening Our Schools: A New Framework and Principles for Revising School Improvement Grants." Rather than the usual limited two-component blueprint framework that focuses only on instruction and management/governance, Representative Chu's report adopts a three-component framework. This…

This report addresses the question: "Where do interventions for concerns about substance use fit into the work of schools?" By way of background, we begin by differentiating between use and abuse and briefly summarizing some major issues and data relevant to substance use and treatment of abuse and dependency. And, to highlight the importance of…

As the focus on school improvement at a state education agency moves from mostly a compliance approach to playing a greater role in capacity building, the agency's leadership needs to rethink student and learning supports. That is the focus of this report. Given that almost half of the chief state school officers have assumed their position in the…

Risk taking is natural. As the bumper stickers says: "Risk taking happens!" Risk taking behavior may be beneficial or harmful. Some risk taking is unintentional. But a considerable amount stems from proactive or reactive motivation. For schools, some forms of student risk taking behavior are a necessity, and some forms are a problem. With respect…

The data are clear: Too many students are not doing well in school. Too many are experiencing interfering barriers, most of which are not internal dysfunctions but are associated with neighborhood, family, school, and peer factors. If the situation is to change, schools must play a greater role in providing supports for students experiencing…

Obviously, a small school has less staff and other resources than most larger schools. Nevertheless, the three major functions necessary for school improvement remain the same in all schools, namely (1) improving instruction, (2) providing learning supports to address barriers to learning and teaching, and (3) enhancing management and governance.