Research and Best Practices
This two part rubric and worksheet is for use by individuals responsible for monitoring (1) district-level capacity to support response to intervention (RTI implementation and (2) district-wide fidelity of RTI implementation.
Leadership Resources
Rural Alaska Principal Preparation and Support (RAPPS)
RAPPS is a comprehensive leadership development program focused on preparation of principals for high poverty and remote Alaska schools, and support for those who are currently serving in those schools. The program consists of three components: 1) preservice, 2) induction, and 3) training and technical assistance for principals in high need districts.
Funded by the US Department of Education: School Leadership Grant Program (CFDA#84.363A)
The Handbook on Family and Community Engagement
This Handbook is intended to provide educators, community leaders, and parents with a succinct survey of the best research and practice accumulated over the years. More important, the Handbook gives us a guide—a lean and lucid roadmap with which we can travel to a new plain in our quest for each and every student’s academic, personal, social, and emotional development. The authors wanted to bring together the best minds on the various topics related to family and community engagement and produce a guidebook that is solid in its research.....
eLearning Module from EED: Alaska Steps Toward Educational Progress and Partnership (STEPP)
This course is for school and district staff participating in Alaska STEPP. The course is organized into 17 chapters. The first chapter is an overview of the purpose and process of Alaska STEPP. The remaining 16 chapters outline other specific details in navigating STEPP and applying it to the School and District Improvement process.
1. To access this course, you must first login as a user at www.eed.state.ak.us/ELearning/
2. After successfully logging in, you will see a Welcome page. On the right hand side of the page is a link for.....
Collaborative Meetings
Based on the research literature, this guide was developed specifically to support Alaska educators’ efforts to increase student learning by meeting together to collaboratively monitor the progress of their students, assess students’ learning needs, and decide how to tailor instructional practice in response to those identified needs. There is a DVD that accompanies this guide that.....
A Practical Guide to Designing Comprehensive Teacher Evaluation Systems
Across the nation, states and districts
are in the process of building better
teacher evaluation systems that not
only identify highly effective teachers
but also systematically provide data and
feedback that can be used to improve
teacher practice . A Practical Guide to
Designing Comprehensive Teacher
Evaluation Systems is a tool designed to
assist states and districts in constructing
high-quality teacher evaluation systems in
an effort to improve teaching and learning
Making Choices to Prioritize Learning Time for Students
Do you wonder how districts, unions, and schools can collaborate to create innovative time and prioritize expanded learning time for students?
Budgets, staffing, and negotiated agreements don’t have to place strict limits on the length of the school day. In this third session of a webinar series on expanded learning time, Ben Lummis, Vice President for the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) and Sarah Gallagher, Program Associate at NCTL will share a framework for flexibly thinking about resources to maximize the length of your.....
Key Considerations When Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: A Framework for Validating Teachers’ Professional Practices
The report describes three levels of data collection to measure teacher effectiveness both with and without standardized test scores.
Building Teacher Evaluation Systems: Learning From Leading Efforts
This report from the Aspen Institute is part of three reports recently released by the Institute to provide policymakers and education leaders with information on how teacher evaluation and performance management systems work and to use the resulting evaluation results with other information, practices and policy levers to improve teaching and learning. This report is a synthesis of Aspen Institute’s profiles of the teacher evaluation and performance management system efforts conducted by the District of Columbia Public Schools (Teaching and.....
Find What Works
Looking for a better way to find curricula, products, and practices that meet your school or district's needs? Check out the new and improved What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) search feature, Find What Works. This powerful tool makes it easy to find out what rigorous research says about the effectiveness of more than 100 widely used education interventions. You can search for interventions by grade level, subject, delivery method, and other.....
New Updates to the National High School Center's Early Warning System (EWS) Tool v2.0 and Technical Manual
The National High School Center recently released an updated version of the tool and technical manual to better support users as they strive to identify and address issues that lead to students dropping out of school. The updated tool includes a new Export Data feature, and the updated Technical Manual includes several additional instructions, hints, and cautions to help you use the tool. More details on the new tool and Technical Manual are below, along with instructions on how you can easlily transfer your existing data into the new tool......
Principal Effectiveness: A New Principalship to Drive Student Achievement, Teacher Effectiveness, and School Turnarounds
Lessons learned from school leaders making breakthrough gains in student achievement and teacher effectiveness. Includes policy recommendations for school turnarounds and key insights from The Urban Excellence FrameworkTM.
Coaching for School Improvement: A Guide for Coaches and Their Supervisors (CII)
A Guide for Coaches and Their Supervisors offers tools, tips, and strategies for coaches working with school improvement teams. The guide also offers examples and recommendations for coaches working with teams who are using the online Indistar® tool created by CII.
http://www.centerii.org/restructuring/
A Comprehensive K-3 Reading Assessment Plan: Guidance for School Leaders (COI)
Because scientific studies have repeatedly demonstrated the value of regularly assessing reading progress, a comprehensive assessment plan is a critical element of an effective school-level plan for preventing reading difficulties. This guide from the Center on Instruction provides valuable information for school leaders. While the general principles, such as the early identification of students who are struggling in learning to read, are all based on scientific findings, the detailed recommendations for implementation derive from practical.....
Evaluating School Principals Tips and Tools
Creating an environment that is conducive to both teacher improvement and student achievement is the key goal for most school administrators and districts alike. It makes sense, therefore, to include a way to capture or measure one or more quality indicators within an assessment, for example, through a survey, of how well (or not) a principal is able to achieve this goal and his or her impact on outcomes related to teacher and student growth as a component of the evaluation system.
FREE-DVD-Principal Walk-Throughs A Tool for Alaskan Instructional Leaders
THIS DVD IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE!
Produced by Education Northwest through the Alaska Comprehensive Center for the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (EED), this 15-minute video looks at how four principals carry out “walk-throughs” in their schools. Walk-throughs—sometimes called learning walks or data walks—are quick classroom visits that can help principals systematically gather data on instructional practices. Alaska EED is particularly interested in using.....
Measuring Teacher and Leader Performance: Cross-Sector Lessons for Excellent Evaluation
With support from the Joyce Foundation, this report from Public Impact summarizes six steps derived from best practices and research of government agencies, non-profit organizations, and for-profit companies that are critical in designing high quality, effective performance measurement systems. Each step is illustrated by examples from other sectors. The report concludes by proposing sample elements of a performance measurement system for teachers that transparently show the relationship between the education system’s goals, teacher.....
A Coherent Approach to High School Improvement: A District and School Self-Assessment Tool
The National High School Center at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) developed this resource to assist districts and schools assess their current high school education policies and practices with a focus on identifying strengths and areas for improvement in order to implement coherent school reform initiatives. The self-assessment tool addresses eight domains: 1) curriculum and instruction, 2) assessment and accountability, 3) teacher effectiveness and professional growth, 4) student and family involvement, 5) stakeholder engagement,.....
What Are Rural Districts Doing? (Ideas for rural districts and others considering or committed to using SIG Funds)
In order to help districts considering or committed to using School Improvement Grant funds to rapidly improve persistently low-performing schools, CII researchers searched websites of major cities and districts to discover tools and processes already in use. The results, while not exhaustive, may provide models for implementing turnarounds, restarts, school closure, or transformations.
