Changing Schools, the magazine for educators published thrice yearly by McREL, has won a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP).
At the annual dropout summit in North Dakota, McREL Senior Researcher Dawn Mackety explained that parent-engagement plays a crucial role in preventing dropouts. "If we can get parents more engaged, that helps kids make that connection between their home culture and schools," said Mackety.
McREL's magazine for educators, Changing Schools, has been named as a finalist for the 2009 Distinguished Achievement Awards, given by the Association of Education Publishers.
McREL, in conjunction with KnowledgeWorks Foundation, has published Transforming Urban Education: Implications for State Policymakers, a brief that employs scenario planning to envision a wide array of possible futures for education in urban centers. The authors recommend several steps urban educators can take today to prepare for these futures.
Johnson Junior High School in Cheyenne, Wyo., will be using McREL's Success in Sight approach to school improvement. Success in Sight is a customized approach to school improvement that builds on school strengths, uses research to identify and implement changes that generate "quick wins" in student achievement, and over time, lead to long-term, sustainable changes in school culture and performance.
The Georgia House passed a bill which could give schools the flexibility they need to switch to a four-day week. School officials want this to be an option available to them, though they don't have plans to move any schools to a four-day week immediately. There is more work to be done in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of the idea. McREL Principal Evaluator Andrea Beesley points out that the impacts on student achievement are unclear, "because so many things affect student achievement."
Olympus High School offers online high school courses to homeschooled children, allowing them to benefit from the structure and support of a traditional school. The accredited online high school uses content standards established by McREL.
McREL and the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility (SNF) have released the first of two instructional modules from the NanoLeap into New Science project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).
WFPL host Julie Kredens recently interviewed Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) Superintendent Sheldon Berman and McREL Researcher Carrie Harris about McREL's study, called the Greater Louisville Education Project. The study was commissioned by JCPS to analyze the district's performance and identify areas in need of improvement.
Jefferson County Public Schools in Kentucky recently hired McREL to evaluate their district in funding, safety, college and career readiness, instruction, and advancing competiveness. The district plans to use the report to benchmark their progress and identify areas in need of reform. So far, the district has found McREL's report to reaffirm their goals and strategies, and raise awareness of areas that need to be improved.
Park City Schools are contemplating moving to a four-day school week. Before they make a decision, however, they are trying to evaluate all sides of the issue and review the available research, which has been summarized by McREL.
A small classroom in Sioux Falls brings together students from diverse backgrounds and ages in a one-room classroom for grades 3–8. McREL Principal Evaluator Andrea Beesley notes that children in such classrooms are often shortchanged on activities and can have trouble switching to larger schools later, but that they do benefit from working with children in other grade levels.
