A new report from the RAND Corporation, Mathematica, and Florida State University finds that Chicago students attending a charter high school were 7 percent more likely to graduate, and 11 percent more likely to attend college than students enrolled in regular public schools. The study is the first in the nation to track high school outcomes for charter school students.

Recent research shows that the nation's largest cities tend to have the lowest graduation rates—even below 50 percent. Students in suburban and rural public high school are much more likely to graduate.

A new report from The American Association of University Women suggests that, although girls continue to graduate from high school and attend college at a higher rate than boys, the achievement gap between different races, ethnicities, and income levels is far more significant than the disparity between boys and girls.

A new study scheduled to be published in the journals of Educational Policy and Sociology of Education suggests that exit exams do not work the way they are intended. In order to provide any level of benefit to learning or future job prospects, exit exams should be more difficult to provide a more accurate measure of performance. But making the exams more difficult will also result in a much lower graduation rate for students.

This guide summarizes research on turnaround practices, case studies of seemingly effective schools, and correlational studies and longitudinal studies of patterns of school improvement. Educators can find practical, research-based advice for implementing reform efforts to dramatically improve student achievement in chronically low-performing schools.

This final report from the U.S. Department of Education evaluates the implementation of the law that provides funding for the Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) program. Although implementation of SLCs took a variety of forms, the primary goal of each of the SLCs studied was to make high school more personalized for all students. Of the SLCs studied, most were successful in involving community members, but most failed to provide adequate professional development for teachers to implement the programs.

This report finds that, despite the best of intentions, federal, state, and local funding formulas tend to provide more money to affluent students and schools than to their struggling neighbors. The report suggests strategies to help fix this disparity in funding.

This report evaluates feedback from focus groups with principals in high-needs school districts and interviews with superintendents and other education officials. The report finds that principals can often be classified as "Transformers" or "Copers." Transformers have a can-do attitude and a clear vision for what their school might be. Copers deal with the day-to-day challenges of running a school, without a vision for the future.

This report measured trends in the attrition of public school mathematics and science teachers over 16 years. The report found that the attrition rate for mathematics and science teachers has not changed substantially, even though teacher attrition in other fields did increase. When asked about reasons for leaving the teaching profession, mathematics and science teachers placed more emphasis on salary and benefits than did other teachers leaving the profession.

This interim report provides preliminary findings from an evaluation of the Reading First program. The analysis shows that Reading First has had a positive impact on class time spent on reading instruction. Unfortunately, Reading First did not have a significant impact on reading comprehension for students.

A recent survey asked teachers what they do and about reform proposals they are experiencing. Some of the key findings of this report are: 75 percent of teachers report that burned-out teachers stay in the profession, rather than finding a new career; only 26 percent say that their evaluations are useful and effective; fewer teachers support pay-for-performance plans than did five years ago; and teachers are more supportive of unions now than five years ago.

A new report suggests that the NCLB classification of Asian students might be masking the struggle of certain groups of Asian Americans. One of the recommendations made in the report is to use more local measurements of minority students when determining the need for English-language learner support, rather than statewide averages.

The future is not predictable, but it is possible to plan and take action today to respond to whatever lies ahead. We make decisions every day based on our perceptions of what will happen tomorrow, next month, or years from now—and our decisions are made stronger by better imagining the possibilities of the future. In 2003, McREL initiated a scenario planning process in order to prepare for the uncertain future of education. This summary points out recent news and events and how they track with the scenarios McREL developed.

Over the past five years, McREL staff members have published more than 100 articles describing what we know from four decades of research on effective schools as well as years of practical experience working to help educators raise student performance: that improving schools is both a "science" and an "art." This idea is the common thread running through this unique issue of Noteworthy Perspectives, which brings together several previously published articles on school improvement from McREL.

This high-quality image is an attractive reminder of the nine categories of instruction that McREL's research has shown to improve student achievement. Use this free wallpaper to quickly access the Classroom Instruction That Works strategies!

Come to McREL this summer for professional development that makes a difference. Choose from among sessions for both teachers and leaders, held in our Denver facilities.

This 3-day workshop describes nine categories of effective instructional strategies and shows how to implement them in the classroom. Workshop content is based on the best-selling Classroom Instruction that Works, one of the most widely-used professional development manuals in education today.

During this 2-day seminar, you’ll gain a practical understanding of the strategies in Classroom Instruction that Works, why they are so powerful in student learning, and how to identify their use in classrooms. Learn how to use McREL’s Power Walkthrough software on your hand-held device to observe, evaluate, and record classroom observations and coach your teachers to higher levels of performance.

This 3-day workshop explores ways to use technology with the nine research-based instructional strategies to enhance student achievement using your existing lesson plans.

In this 2-day workshop, science teachers will be introduced to McREL's Designing Effective Science Lessons framework to learn how to make the most out of their science lessons.
 

Gain knowledge and practical skills from McREL’s research, reported in the ASCD publication School Leadership that Works, to guide your school to higher levels of performance and student achievement. Attend one or all four in a series of 2-day institutes.

 

An Overview
June 25–26

 

Developing a Purposeful Community
June 27–28

 

Managing Change
June 30–July 1

 

Choosing the Right Focus
July 2–3

Science teachers will learn how to focus on the right content, deepen students’ understanding of science, engage students, and encourage high-order thinking.

Based on our popular book of the same title, this 2-day workshop applies the nine categories of research-based instructional strategies to five stages of language acquisition. Learn how to successfully engage and raise the achievement of English-language learners in mainstream classrooms.

Develop a step-by-step process for creating an alignment matrix, mapping assessments to standards, identifying gaps in instruction and achievement, and evaluating a school or district curriculum framework for appropriateness.

Learn practical, research-based strategies for differentiating instruction, creating classrooms that build on students’ prior knowledge, and motivating students to learn.