The Source

A brief history of equity in education Equity in educational opportunity has been a major focus of federal legislation and programs for over a half a century. It started with the passing of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965 and continued in all its subsequent reauthorizations, including No... Read the full article >

I’m talking about both state accountability testing and local testing—i.e., district, school, and classroom. The reason I’m addressing both is because I’ve seen the significant impact the former can have on the latter. In their own testing, local educators often mimic the kinds of tests that produce results for which... Read the full article >

In addition, early childhood assessment identifies the need for intervention or support services due to developmental delays or other risk factors influencing typical development. Finally, assessment supports programs in evaluating the effectiveness of learning environments, curriculum and instructional practices. A comprehensive assessment system within an early childhood program should include... Read the full article >

About Lake Hills School Lake Hills School is the Exceptional Student Education Center School for Lake County, Florida, which serves students with significant cognitive disabilities (SwSCD) ages 3–22. All of the classrooms at Lake Hills School are self-contained meaning the classes are multi-grade level and multi-ability level. For example, a... Read the full article >

Every graduate we see proudly sporting their cap and gown has a story. Whether their journey across that stage was likely or remarkable, they are to be lauded. Their graduation is the fulfillment of a promise that their hard work, commitment, and determination to overcome challenges large and small will... Read the full article >

Years after leaving that school, I still feel pangs of distress in my stomach as I think about walking into the building. The toxic energy was palpable. No smiles were exchanged in the hallways. The teachers’ lounge became a dumping ground of complaints, tears, and stress over the latest round... Read the full article >

The study of open education practice has shown how open educational resources (OER)— freely available materials that can be downloaded, distributed, adapted, and openly shared to better serve all students (see box)—accelerates systemic change in curriculum and instruction, as well as enhanced learning for students by embedding participatory processes of... Read the full article >

When we look at most middle and high school classrooms, it turns out that the problems students face in reading for understanding are not driven by any innate inability to learn on their part but by teaching in ways that do not foster critical thinking, reading and writing as central... Read the full article >

Our research shows that student engagement is a vital component of quality education. AdvancED recently conducted a pilot in three states, where we looked at measuring student engagement with our eProve™ surveys tool. You can read about our findings in Measuring Student Engagement with eProve surveys. Focusing excessively on adult behaviors... Read the full article >

Not long ago, three former teachers turned researchers set off to discover what K–12 schools can learn from the best-run organizations in America. The researchers, Mallory Dwinal, David Richard and Jennifer Wu, began by identifying the best workplaces and looking systematically at the structures and processes that high-performing managers put... Read the full article >