Bruce Randel

To support school improvement efforts, school leaders and education agencies might need to identify groups of schools that are similar so that schools can compare their performance or share practices with other schools in the same group. This could also allow education agencies to provide tailored supports to schools in a group. This guide describes how an education agency can select a distance measure (a statistical rather than a geographic measure) to identify schools that are similar to a ...

District leaders and chief state school officers in the Central Region are interested in expanding teacher mentoring in high-need schools. Student achievement continues to lag in high-poverty schools, large numbers of teachers are expected to retire in the near future, and state and district budget shortfalls continue to preclude many districts from undertaking more expensive approaches to supporting their teachers. This study involves a randomized controlled trial of the Retired Mentors for ...

Competency-based education has received growing attention in recent years as a way to address preK-12 learning goals. In competency-based education, students are promoted to the next course of study or grade level in each subject area after demonstrating mastery of identified learning targets aligned to standards. Westminster Public Schools in Colorado began the transition to a competency-based education system in 2009. In the Westminster Public Schools system, courses of study are organized ...