In their second collaboration, Wilcox and Angelis tell the stories of high school educators who embody best practices in their day-to-day activitiespractices that consistently lead to higher student academic achievement across the core subjects for all students. This book shares results of a multi-case study of how some high schools consistently deliver better student performance, including improved four-year graduation rates. These schools have learned how to successfully adapt to the climate of increased (and increasing) accountability. Best Practices from High-Performing High Schools is for anyone who strives to ensure that all teens graduate from high school and are ready to succeed in college, in their careers, and in life.

Why is it that many students’ performance tends to drop in the middle school years, and what can we do about it? This book tells the stories of educators who embody best practices in their day-to-day activities—practices that consistently lead to higher student academic achievement. The authors share what they have learned about how some middle schools consistently foster better academic performance than other similar schools. These schools have learned to successfully adapt to the climate of accountability while practicing the essentials of effective middle-level education. Best Practices from High-Performing Middle Schools is essential reading for everyone who cares about adolescents and wants to ensure their success in later schooling and in life. Teachers and administrators will find research-based practices that they can adapt to their own unique contexts. Parents, policymakers, and community members will better understand how they can contribute to the improvement of their middle schools. Book Features: Identifies 5 key elements or “best practices” that were present in high-performing middle schools. Includes a self-assessment tool for each best practice to help educators identify where their school’s or district’s efforts fall along these five key elements. Presents key research that speaks to communities striving to serve large numbers of children from low-income families.

This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.

Discover the teaching practices that make the biggest difference in student performance! This practical, research-based book gives principals, teachers, and school administrators a direct, inside look at instructional practices from top award-winning urban schools. The authors provide detailed examples and analyses of these practices, and successfully demystify the achievement of these schools. They offer practical guides to help educators apply these successful practices in their own schools. Teaching Practices from America's Best Urban Schools will be a valuable tool for any educator in both urban and non-urban schools-schools that serve diverse student populations, including English language learners and children from low-income families.

This practical volume provides school administrators and teachers with the information needed to convert ordinary schools into high performing schools. It offers practices for teachers and school principals to foster academic success, and strategies for involving parents in their child's education.

Governors and state and local education officials assumed that raising student achievement in the elementary and middle grades would solve the problems with high schools--but it hasn't. Why? Good information is the basis for successful improvement, and high school reform lacks accurate information about what students are to learn and about how many students are actually learning it. In addition, "better K-8 student performance" may still fall woefully short of a true college-readiness standard. A rigorous methodology guides the consistently higher performing school identification process the National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA) uses across states. Researchers at NCEA study both average and higher performing schools to ensure its findings represent what distinguishes higher performers from others. Common protocols, reviewed externally, guide NCEA's site visits. The study of approximately 500 school systems over the past five years using this methodology is the foundation for the information shared in this document. The study of these school systems led to the development of the NCEA Best Practice Framework. The NCEA Best Practice Framework features three primary components: "Organizing Themes," "School System Levels," and "School System Practices". The Framework rests on the "State Standards" as a foundation for teaching and learning. Ensuring success for every child on the assessment of those standards ("Evidence of Student Learning") requires "High-Quality Instruction." And, achieving such instruction in every classroom requires a coherent system of district-, school-, and classroom-level practices. Appended are: (1) Emerging High School Best Practices by NCEA Organizing Theme; and (2) 2001-2005 High School Site Visits. (Contains 3 figures and 10 footnotes.).

Schools across the United States and Canada are disrupting the adverse effects of poverty and supporting students in ways that enable them to succeed in school and in life. In this second edition, Parrett and Budge show you how your school can achieve similar results. Expanding on their original framework's still-critical concepts of actions and school culture, they incorporate new insights for addressing equity, trauma, and social-emotional learning. These fresh perspectives combine with lessons learned from 12 additional high-poverty, high-performing schools to form the updated and enhanced Framework for Collective Action. Emphasizing students' social, emotional, and academic learning as the hub for all action in high-performing, high-poverty schools, the authors describe how educators can work within the expanded Framework to address the needs of all students, but particularly those who live in poverty. Equipped with the Framework and a plethora of tools to build collective efficacy (self-assessments, high-leverage questions, action advice, and more), school and district leaders—as well as teachers, teacher leaders, instructional coaches, and other staff—can close persistent opportunity gaps and reverse longstanding patterns of low achievement.