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P.S. 52 Sheepshead Bay School in Brooklyn, New York, serves more than 850 students from pre-kindergarten to fifth grade from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. After scores on the 2014 New York State English language arts assessment were unsatisfactory, first-year principal Rafael Alvarez searched for a way to improve academic outcomes for his students. The school leadership team partnered with American Institutes for Research (AIR) to design and implement its Response to Intervention (RTI) framework, a research-based framework that uses data-based decision making and three levels of instruction to address a wide range of student needs. Over a period of three years of implementing the framework, both AIR and the school took away several important building blocks useful to any school or district implementing RTI. This piece summarizes that information by sharing the narrative of P.S. 52's work alongside useful resources and evidence about the implementation of RTI. Ten RTI building blocks followed by teachers, students, administrators, and parents at P.S. 52 are discussed.

The primary purpose of this publication is to provide those involved in special education teacher preparation and professional development with a set of high-leverage practices (HLPs) that were identified through consensus among special educators. These HLPs may be used to design a cohesive set of practice based opportunities to support teacher candidates and practicing teachers in learning to put this know-how to use on behalf of the complex learners they teach. The document begins by providing the Council for Exceptional Children's (CEC's) HLPs across four intertwined components of special education teacher practice--collaboration, assessment, social/emotional/behavioral practices, and instruction. The 22 HLPs are intended to address the most critical practices that every K-12 special education teacher should master. The research syntheses that follow the HLPs delve more deeply into the rationale and evidence base for each. The appendices provide references for teacher educators, administrators, and teachers alike, with a glossary of terms and additional resources for each of the HLP components.

Current educational data indicate that culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students--students in the ethnic or language minority--have some of the lowest academic outcomes and graduation rates among student subgroups. Supported by more than a decade of literature, culturally relevant pedagogy provides a set of practices that teachers and schools can integrate into their daily instructional programs to improve outcomes for CLD students. Through technical assistance to states, the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform Center (CEEDAR) is supporting educator preparation programs across the country to integrate culturally responsive teaching (CRT) into their teacher education course content and field experiences. CEEDAR technical assistance providers provide research and tools to assist teacher education faculty. This report highlights two of the states that have initiated work to strengthen education preparation in CRT--South Dakota and Connecticut.