Over the last 20 years, state education agencies (SEAs) have been given considerably more responsibilities for directing and guiding the improvement of low-performing schools. At the same time, federal policies strongly pressed SEAs to use research to design these supports. Very few studies have explored the SEA as an organization, or its role in…

Although studies of districts' and schools' use of research exist, little is known about how SEAs search for, select, and use research and other kinds of evidence in their school improvement strategies. While one might assume similarities in research use behaviors, both the organizational structures of SEAs and the population of external…

The College and Career Readiness Standards, referred to as the Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS) in New York City, are increasingly the focus of educational reform efforts across the United States. Each year for the past several years, the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) has created a set of focusing expectations for schools in…

This interactive electronic report provides an overview of an innovative new instrument developed by researchers at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) to authentically measure teachers' formative assessment practices in mathematics. The Teacher Analysis of Student Knowledge, or TASK, instrument assesses mathematics…

Beginning in 2005, the GE Foundation initiated a commitment of expertise and financial resources to a set of urban school districts to improve public education and enhance student achievement in mathematics and science. This report analyzes the impacts of the GE Foundation commitment to the partner districts by examining trends in student…

District policy makers never have more potential influence than when they are crafting a Policy. In this paper Jonathan Supovitz argues, that the success of an instructional policy depends to some extent on the choices made in its crafting before it is let loose upon the world. The way a policy is framed and designed has important implications for…

This report summarizes findings from one component of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE) evaluation of the General Electric Foundation's (GEF) "Developing Futures"™ in Education program in Cincinnati Public Schools (CPS). The purpose was to closely analyze district capacity to support system-wide…

The allure of using data to improve performance is a source of tremendous activity in the education field today. "Data use" has spurred a wide variety of reforms at all different levels of the education system, ranging from infrastructure augmentation to state databases, to district dashboard systems that collect and display an array of…

This report summarizes findings from one component of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE) evaluation of the General Electric Foundation's (GEF) "Developing Futures" ™ in Education program in Erie Public Schools (EPS). As described in the CPRE proposal and research design, the purpose was to closely analyze…

Reading Recovery (RR) is a short-term early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving readers in first grade reach average levels of classroom performance in literacy. Students identified to receive Reading Recovery meet individually with a specially trained Reading Recovery (RR) teacher every school day for 30-minute lessons over a…

This report summarizes findings from one component of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE) evaluation of the General Electric Foundation's (GEF) "Developing Futures"™ in Education program in Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS). As described in the CPRE proposal and research design, the purpose was to…

This report summarizes findings from one component of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education's (CPRE) evaluation of the General Electric Foundation's (GEF) "Developing Futures"™ in Education program in Stamford Public Schools (SPS). The purpose was to closely analyze district capacity to support system-wide…

As a critical step in understanding the impacts of IB, the analyses presented in this report examined the selection mechanisms behind IB participation across Florida, the state with the second highest representation of IB programs in the nation. We use longitudinal student and school-level data from 1995 through 2009 from the Florida K-20…

Prior to the mandatory testing and reporting required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), school improvement efforts were shown to lack coherence (Newman, Smith, Allensworth, & Bryk, 2001) and often included conflicting programs (Hatch, 2002). Part of the theory of performance-based accountability in general, and NCLB in particular, was…

Leading school change is a challenging endeavor. Successful leadership requires strategic and sustained effort, particularly in the shifting and uncertain environment of urban public schools. The concept of distributed leadership--in which multiple actors tackle the challenges of school leadership in concert--is a promising way to strengthen…