This Data Point examines parent and/or guardian involvement in various school-based engagement opportunities before the coronavirus pandemic. This information was reported by U.S. public school principals on the principal survey of the 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS). The NTPS is a sample survey of public and private K-12…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) provide schools with a tool to meet the professional development needs of their teachers through ongoing, job-embedded staff development designed to improve instruction and student learning. While research exists on the development of PLCs, there is a gap in the literature concerning the principal's role in…

Professional development in information and communication technology (ICT) remains a major imperative for schools as technologies, and what teachers are able to do with them, continue to evolve. The responses of individual schools to this ongoing challenge can be highly diverse and inevitably shaped by past and current cultural practices, which…

Through learning communities, schools can change to strengthen educator practice and improve student learning outcomes. So can districts. For 20 years, the authors have helped states, districts, and schools in the United States and Canada implement Whole-Faculty Study Groups, a design for learning communities. During the 2010-11 school year, they…

The purpose of this mixed-methods, purposive case study was to investigate the impact of participation in the Metropolitan ISD Principal Coaching Initiative (MPCI) on leadership practice. The MPCI is a district-wide executive leadership capacity building strategy, which combines the District's standards-based leadership curriculum with a…

AISD parent support specialists (PSSs) at 64 schools in 2012-2013 reported the number of familyinvolvement events that occurred at their school during the school year and the number of familymembers who attended. This report summarizes these results at the district level.

Background/Context: As accountability pressures have mounted toward ever-higher targets under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, low-achieving schools have sought new tools for raising achievement. The association between parent involvement and student achievement is well established, though the association is an indirect relationship mediated…

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are being recognized globally for their influential role in realizing the UN Millennium Development Goal of education for all in developing countries. NGOs mostly employ untrained para-educators for grassroots activities. The professional development of these teachers is critical for NGO effectiveness, yet…

Each school year, the School Climate Survey is administered to gather information on the perceptions that students, their parents, and school staffs hold concerning their schools and their performance. In 2008-2009, the survey was distributed to approximately 90,200 parents, 54,200 elementary, secondary, and adult students, and 25,000 staff. In…

The National Institute of School Leadership's (NISL's) Executive Development Program (EDP) was established to provide professional development to school leaders to drive their schools to high performance. The program emphasizes the role of principals as strategic thinkers, instructional leaders, and creators of a just, fair, and caring culture in…

This study examined the impact of NISL's [National Institute for School Leadership's] Executive Development Program for principals on student achievement in Pennsylvania schools between 2006-2009. Roughly half of the NISL-trained principals started the program during the 2007 school year and completed it in the 2008 school year, whereas the other…

Early in the 20th century, educators began looking for scientific methods for matching texts with readers. Some of the best minds in education dedicated themselves to this task, including Edward L. Thorndike, William S. Gray, Ralph Tyler, Edgar Dale, Irving Lorge, and Jeanne S. Chall. The purpose of this book is to bring students of reading into…

This paper emerges out of a larger qualitative study that aimed at mapping barriers to basic education experienced by children and adults in the context of the HIV and AIDS pandemic. The study was undertaken in Richmond district and involved a range of centres of learning (formal and informal) including three high schools, five primary schools,…

The "Brown v. Board of Education" decision defined public education for African Americans in the United States. In this article I discuss the tradition of African American parental involvement in the pre-"Brown" era, challenges to parental involvement in a post-"Brown" era, and a parental involvement initiative in an…

Achievement gaps have real consequences for students, particularly those facing the challenge of passing the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE), now a requirement in order to receive a high school diploma in California. The combined 2005 CAHSEE passing rates reveal significant discrepancies between White and Asian students and their African…