Schoolwide support for higher achievement is essential. Students need a nurturing environment where they feel secure about learning, where the goal is success for every student and where students are confident they will receive mentoring and encouragement to prepare for their futures. Many schools are reinventing themselves to motivate students to…

Research has shown that certain ways of teaching can make a difference in whether students learn standards-based content. Many strategies have proven to be effective in teaching literacy, mathematics, science and social studies. These strategies have facilitated blending academic and career/technical subjects to make learning more meaningful for…

The Common Core State (or other rigorous) Standards (CCSS) being implemented by states across the nation are prompting school leaders and teachers to seek ways to move the standards into classroom instruction, assignments and assessments. Schools wanting to ensure that student work meets grade-level standards are using differentiated instructional…

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) joined hands in 2005 to enhance dramatically implementation of the "High Schools That Work" ("HSTW") improvement design in the state. Between 2005 and 2010, nearly 50 high schools in five cohorts joined the Texas Enhanced "HSTW" Network to adopt this intensive…

Schools are finding effective ways to engage students totally in learning by addressing students' minds, personalities and behaviors. They are designing curricula and instructional strategies to generate interest and challenge students to stay in school and do their best. The goal is to graduate a "complete student" who will be ready for college,…

This newsletter focuses on strategies middle grades schools are using to prepare more students for success in high school. This is part of a series of newsletters describing best practices for implementing the HSTW, MMGW and TCTW (High Schools That Work, Making Middle Grades Work, Technology Centers That Work) school improvement models. The series…

SREB states were among the first in the nation to set comprehensive state academic standards for K-12 schools. Setting these initial standards was only part of the job. Getting these standards right and keeping them right may be the most important task facing public education today. If state standards are too low, many public school graduates will…

If Southern Regional Education Board, SREB, were to grade states today on the middle grades goal, only a few would earn high marks; most are still struggling, and that goes for most of the rest of the nation as well. That does not mean that student achievement is not improving or that SREB states have not developed some key policies and promising…

Quality instruction and student engagement in mathematics are strategies that are becoming more vital as the new century unfolds. To prepare for living and working in a technically intensive world, high school students need a culture of high expectations, quality college-preparatory-level courses and numeracy across the curriculum. The following…