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Their report, State Education Agencies as Agents of Change: What It Will Take for the States to Step Up On Education Reform, noted that SEAs—once small-time agencies focused on managing federal programs and compliance with legal obligations—had to take on unprecedented demands. State education agencies sometimes found themselves overwhelmed by... Read the full article >

Why stakeholder involvement is vital to the success of early learning programs Stakeholder involvement in preschool programs is vital for multiple reasons. The first reason is that stakeholders who are engaged in supporting a school feel a sense of ownership and a desire to ensure the success of the early... Read the full article >

The Unique Path to Continuous School Improvement in Non-Public Education With over 30,000 private schools in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics), this sector adds diversity and complexity to schools’ educational landscape. According to Groves and George (2022), the continuous improvement journey emphasizes the role of leadership and... Read the full article >

The humorist Mark Twain once wrote that “continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” Few educators could argue with this maxim. While there are too many interrelated factors that affect school performance to ever come close to perfection, educators must constantly rethink what their schools can do to be highly... Read the full article >

The Power of Professional Learning Standards for Educators Professional learning for educators at all levels is the best way to ensure that educators can meet all students’ needs so that every student thrives. Students’ needs are constantly evolving, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, and research on the brain and learning... Read the full article >

The first step to drive intensive school improvement and school turnaround is to conduct an in-depth Diagnostic Review. Whether for schools needing targeted or comprehensive support or to address pockets of underperformance within the education ecosystem, the Diagnostic Review process identifies pathways for improvement through an in-depth review and analysis... Read the full article >

A Case for Accreditation Accreditation is a process of continuous school improvement through which an institution is evaluated and monitored for adherence to a set of standards in support of teaching and learning, along with organizational effectiveness. This serves two main purposes: quality assurance (a status) and quality improvement (a... Read the full article >

State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler has described Cognia as a crucial partner in her efforts to support the continuous improvement of each school and district as well as the state department. In a recent interview, Baesler described her perspective on partnerships and some of the ways in which Cognia has worked... Read the full article >

These questions are the focus of two different approaches—accountability and accreditation— that ought to work together in more mutually reinforcing ways to improve student and school performance. 1. State accountability systems. State education accountability systems are federally mandated, state-determined efforts to set goals for performance that measure, rate, and rank... Read the full article >

While the responsibility of ensuring teacher participation in professional development often falls on the principal as the educational and instructional leader of the school (Vogel, 2018), principals must plan TPD initiatives, set expectations for implementation, and evaluate implementation results (Celeste, 2016) in addition to a multitude of other responsibilities and... Read the full article >