Law Commons^™

Connecticut Educator Insights On Building A More Effective, Diverse Educator Workforce, Madeleine Sims, Elizabeth Chu, Scheherazade Salimi, Delaney Lawson, Zoe Mitrofanis, Ivy Moore, Julia Skwarczyński

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Teachers are the strongest school-based determinant of student success. Yet at the start of the 2022-23 school year, across the state of Connecticut, over 1,200 certified staff member positions were vacant. The educator shortage was particularly acute in upper-level math and science, special education, and bilingual education.

Despite growing demand for educators in those subject areas, the number of pre-service educators pursuing those endorsements has generally remained constant or decreased between 2015-2021, suggesting that absent meaningful change, shortages will persist.

Educators, administrators, and policymakers hypothesize that the state’s current educator preparation and certification process contributes to the state’s twin challenges …

Staying The Course: Toward Strong Hqim Implementation In Delaware, Grace Mccarty, Molly Gurny, Michelle Cao, Alison Drileck, Mahima Golani, Robert Mccarthy, Krista Morales, Nathan Small

Center for Public Research and Leadership

With the implementation of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) and curriculum-based professional learning, Delaware educators, students, and families have ventured into promising, challenging new territory. HQIM ask a great deal of their users. Educators are called upon to abandon traditional approaches to instruction, allowing kids to loudly drive classroom discourse rather than passively taking notes on teacher lectures. Students are asked to grapple with rigorous, problem-based subject matter that offers no easy answers and requires deep analytical thinking and collaboration. Families are asked to support their children’s learning when the materials and resources that come home may feel unfamiliar and overwhelming. …

Curriculum-Based Professional Learning: The State Of The Field, Elizabeth Chu, Grace Mccarty, Molly Gurny, Naureen Madhani, Mahima Golani, Joanna Pisacone

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Providing curriculum-based professional learning at scale is challenging, complex, and contextualized. It requires time, people, money, and expertise at the systems-level and at the ground-level. No single school system, organization, or actor can accomplish it alone. Instead, scaling the curriculum-based professional learning on which HQIM relies requires a field of diverse, interdisciplinary actors from across the education sector who collectively co-produce improved professional learning through research, strategy, policy, and direct service. Put another way, to strengthen educational experiences and outcomes for students, proponents of HQIM and curriculum-based professional learning must build a strong, resilient field of individuals and organiza­tions working …

From Acorn To Seedling: Developing The Great Oaks Fellowship Program, Kimberly Austin, Sangeetha Ramanathan

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Founded in 2011, the Great Oaks Fellowship Program (GO Fellowship Program) delivers high-dosage tutoring designed to improve academic performance for all students, narrowing the achievement gap between students marginalized by U.S. school systems and their more advantaged peers. It also aims to enrich school communities through mentorship and service that increase a school staff’s capacity to create a positive community.

This report, created by the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University, documents the program’s history, the development of its current strategy, and early evidence of this strategy’s impact. This work builds on the GO Foundation’s two …

Forward Together: Building A Field That Works For Families, Center For Public Research And Leadership

Center for Public Research and Leadership

The coronavirus pandemic revealed the necessity, the complexity, and the tremendous value of building strong ties between schools and families. To ensure continuity of learning, schools were forced to rely heavily on families and caregivers to support learning in the home.

But the conversation around family engagement is not new. The value of family involvement in education has been clear for decades, with strong evidence establishing this engagement as a critical driver of student academic and socioemotional outcomes.

Building on this robust research base, the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) in 2016 began to explore a strategy of building …

Fundamental 4: Pandemic Learning Reveals The Value Of High-Quality Instructional Materials To Educator-Family-Student Partnerships, Elizabeth Chu, Andrea Clay, Grace Mccarty

Center for Public Research and Leadership

The COVID-19 pandemic caused enormous disruptions to PK-12 school systems, including long-held beliefs about teaching and learning. After several months of unexpected virtual and hybrid learning, some school systems have emerged with a new understanding of the instructional core. Commonly thought of as the relationships between teacher, student, and instructional materials that support student learning, these leaders have expanded their understanding of the instructional core to include families.

We conducted nearly 300 interviews with students, families, and educators from nine school districts and charter school organizations to learn more about the expanded instructional core. In Fundamental 4, we share …

About Time: Master Scheduling And Equity, Andrea Clay, Elizabeth Chu, Audrey Altieri, Yvette Deane, Alex Lis-Perlis, Armando Lizarraga, Lauren Monz, Jalil Muhammad, Denise Recinos, Julia Alexandra Tache, Margo Wolters

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Master schedules are used to structure time, people, resources, and space within a school. This report provides school and district leaders advice about how to use the master schedule to advance equity in their communities. It illuminates ways the schedule can both undermine and advance equity and provides a framework to help schools and districts pivot from technical to strategic scheduling to expand access and opportunity for all students

Rise To Thrive: A Vision For A Transformed And Equitable Education System, Center For Public Research And Leadership

Center for Public Research and Leadership

How might we design an education system that prepares every child, of every race and background, to thrive in school and in life? We answer this question in RISE to Thrive: A Vision for a Transformed and Equitable Education System.

Based on conversations with more than 300 students, families, teachers, education leaders, and organizers, among others, our latest publication also incorporates existing research on instructional practices as well as the insights and innovations gained since the pandemic. We hope RISE to Thrive will help education leaders transform their school systems into more equitable ones.

Making Learning Work: A Family Guide To Supporting Your Child In Hybrid And Remote Learning, Center For Public Research And Leadership

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Are you still trying to figure out how to support your child’s learning in a way that is safe and works for your child and family? Many families are in the same situation.

We hope this guide lightens your load and helps you make schooling decisions that meet your needs. Inside you will find practical tips, resources, and tools for use during the pandemic and beyond.

Hacer Que La Educación Funcione: Una Guía Familiar Para Ayudar A Su Hijo En La Educación Híbrida Y A Distancia (Making Learning Work: A Family Guide To Supporting Your Child In Hybrid And Remote Learning), Center For Public Research And Leadership

Center for Public Research and Leadership

¿Todavía está tratando de averiguar cómo apoyar la educación de su hijo de una manera segura y que funcione para su hijo y su familia? Muchas familias se encuentran en la misma situación.

Esperamos que esta guía aligere su carga y le ayude a tomar decisiones escolares que satisfagan sus necesidades. En su interior encontrará consejos prácticos, recursos y herramientas para usar durante la pandemia y más allá.

Abstract in English:
Are you still trying to figure out how to support your child’s learning in a way that is safe and works for your child and family? Many families are …

A Study Of The Purple Star School Designation Program: Summary Report, Center For Public Research And Leadership, Military Child Education Coalition (Mcec)

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Military-connected (MC) families are tough and agile. Moving three times more often, on average, than their civilian counterparts, parents and students quickly learn to become fierce advocates for themselves, lobbying schools to provide the basic educational services and social-emotional supports to which all American children are entitled. But this advocacy becomes exhausting and draws time away from the other pressing demands of relocation and family life. What relief might parents feel if they did not have to constantly put on their armor to fight these battles? And what more could students accomplish if they did not have to settle for …

Managing For Change: Achieving Systemic Reform Through The Effective Implementation Of Networks For School Improvement, Ayeola Kinlaw, Meghan Snyder, Elizabeth Chu, Matty Lau, Shurin (Susan) Lee, Pavithra Nagarajan

Center for Public Research and Leadership

In August 2018, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (“the foundation”) launched its Networks for School Improvement (NSIs) initiative. To further its own continuous learning as well as the learning of its grantees and the educational field, the foundation engaged the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) to conduct a formative evaluation of the NSIs initiative during its first two years. The research questions that guided this study were:

1. How are network hubs implementing the Network for School Improvement (NSI) strategy?
2. What are the characteristics of effective networks and network hubs?

To answer these questions, CPRL used a qualitative …

A Family Guide To Distance Learning, Center For Public Research And Leadership

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Your partnership with your school is critical during distance learning. When your child experiences most schooling at home rather than in a classroom, your family's relationship with the school changes. You may have a greater window into what and how your child is learning, and you are likely to take a role that you rarely or never play during in-person schooling. And, you're likely to perform your usual roles in new ways.

Your family is up to the task. This new school year provides an opportunity for you to forge a stronger partnership with your school – the kind that …

Mitigating The Impact Of School Mobility: An Effective Practices Model And Guide For Educators, Elizabeth Daniel, Meghan Snyder

Center for Public Research and Leadership

On any given day, there are more than 700,000 military-connected students enrolled in U.S. public schools. Many of these students have recently transferred schools and can anticipate additional moves during their K-12 school career because frequent moves are a fact of life for most children who have a parent in the military. They change schools about three times more often than civilian children – and by the time they finish high school, it is common for them to have experienced 6-9 non-promotional school changes. Other highly mobile students – children of migrant workers, those experiencing homelessness or other unstable family …

Newark Enrolls: A Principled Approach To Public School Choice, Kimberly Austin, Lucero Batista, Mahua Bisht, Andrew Karas, Jesse Margolis, Andy Sonnesyn

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Over the last 40 years, states and districts have increased choice among public schools through the creation of magnet, charter, and other specialized schools and through district-led open enrollment processes, among other approaches. These efforts, however, have at times created new inequities.

Families with greater access to information about schools and enrollment deadlines and those with more time and capacity to complete and submit applications are in a better position to exercise choice more effectively. Families also use whatever personal connections they have to help their children secure a seat in high-demand schools, which benefits some families more than others. …

The Challenges Of Supporting Highly Mobile, Military-Connectedchildren In School Transitions, Center For Public Research And Leadership, Military Child Education Coalition (Mcec)

Center for Public Research and Leadership

Military families know the drill. They know what it means to pack up and move to a different installation, a new house, a new life — often with very little notice. Military family websites and YouTube videos abound with moving checklists and how-tos for all types of families and relocations. For parents, however, it is the school transition for their children that can make a permanent change of station (PCS) especially daunting. Indeed, changing schools — educational disruption — is regularly identified by military families as the most difficult of part of moving.

At the request of the Military Child …