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Policymakers and practitioners are increasingly interested in students’ deeper learning skills, or the interpersonal and intrapersonal skills students need to succeed in school, careers, and civic life. This article presents evidence about whether the concept of deeper learning—applied across a variety of approaches—has potential merit as a means for education improvement. The analysis, based on 16 high schools implementing a school-wide approach to promoting deeper learning within the context of small schools, indicates that students who attended schools focused on deeper learning reported greater opportunities for deeper learning, greater competency in some deeper learning domains, had higher rates of graduating from high school, and were more likely to enroll in 4-year colleges than similar students who attended comparison schools.

Here we provide comprehensive guidelines for the assessment and treatment of violence and aggression of various etiologies, including psychotic aggression and impulsive aggression due to schizophrenia, mood disorders, ADHD, or trauma, and predatory aggression due to psychopathy and other personality disorders. These guidelines have been developed from a collection of prescribing recommendations, clinical trial results, and years of clinical experience in treating patients who are persistently violent or aggressive in the California Department of State Hospital System. Many of the recommendations provided in these guidelines employ off-label prescribing practices; thus, sound clinical judgment based on individual patient needs and according to institution formularies must be considered when applying these guidelines in clinical practice.

A core assumption of the San Diego City Schools (SDCS) reform effort was that improved instructional practices, aligned with a balanced literacy approach, would be effective in improving student outcomes. This article explores this hypothesis by presenting findings from an analysis of classroom instruction data collected in 101 classrooms in 9 high-poverty elementary schools. Data were collected using a literacy observation tool adapted from prior research. The study found a prevalent focus on reading comprehension instruction and on students' active engagement in making meaning from text. Teachers' use of higher-level questions and discussion about text were substantially higher than that found by a prior study using the same instrument in similar classrooms elsewhere. Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses of instruction and student outcome data indicate that teacher practices related to the higher-level meaning of text, writing instruction, and strategies for accountable talk were associated with growth...

This article provides an overview of the approach, methodology, and key findings from a theory-based evaluation of the district-led instructional reform effort in San Diego City Schools, under the leadership of Alan Bersin and Anthony Alvarado, that began in 1998. Beginning with an analysis of the achievement trends in San Diego relative to other California urban districts during this period, we then examine the theory of action that guided the San Diego effort, including the focus on instructional change as the primary means to improve student achievement and on the role of site-based instructional leadership and teacher professional development as central strategies for moving instructional practice. The article outlines the study design and introduces the set of papers in this special issue of JESPAR. Reviewing key findings and themes across the article, we conclude that although the reform demonstrated that instructional improvement at scale is possible, sustaining that reform may be more elusive.

After briefly reviewing the unequal opportunities outside schools that contribute to the disparities in educational achievement, attainment, and various indicators of adult success, this chapter zeroes in on addressing inequities within K-12 education. We argue that disparities within the educational system are the product of institutional structures and cultures that both disenfranchise certain groups of students and depress quality overall. Systemic causes require systemic solutions, and we envision a three-pronged systemic remedy: a continuous improvement approach for addressing the quality of educational opportunities for underserved students as well as of the system as a whole; targeted high-leverage interventions consistent with the overall approach but focused on key transition points and needs; and stronger connections between schools and other institutions and systems affecting the development and well-being of children and youth. We then outline a change strategy that incorporates both pressure and support for improvement from three distinct but interacting sources: government and administrative policy (federal, state, and local); professional accountability and networking; and collective engagement of parental, community, and advocacy organizations. We end the chapter with a consideration of recent developments in California and the degree to which they lay the groundwork for moving an equity agenda in the state.

The Study of School Turnaround examines the improvement process in a purposive sample of 35 case study schools receiving federal funds through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program over a three-year period (2010–11 to 2012–13 school years). This brief focuses on 11 of these SIG schools with high proportions of English Language Learner (ELL) students (a median of 45 percent ELLs), describing their efforts to improve teachers’ capacity for serving ELLs through staffing strategies and professional development (PD).

Although the availability of No Child Left Behind public school choice and supplemental educational options continues to expand for students in underperforming schools, only a small percentage of eligible students participate in these programs.

This analytic essay draws on research about the effectiveness of current education policies as well as observations about developing policy systems in a number of states. The chapter begins with several observations about policy and school-level success, examines current barriers to school improvement and proposes a design for a systemic state structure that supports school-site efforts to improve classroom instruction and learning. The structure would be based on clear and challenging standards for student learning; policy components would be tied to the standards and reinforce one another in providing guidance to schools and teachers about instruction. Within the structure of coherent state leadership, schools would have the flexibility they need to develop strategies best suited to their students. The systemic school reform strategy combines the ‘waves’ of reform into a long-term improvement effort that puts coherence and direction into state reforms and content into the restructuring movement.

This research brief summarizes the progress that states, districts, and schools have made in implementing the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

This article describes the design and implementation of external support to low-performing schools using data from Chicago and California. Using the literature on external support, instructional capacity, and policy strength, the study gathered data from interviews, observations, document review, and surveys. The findings suggest that the model of assistance employed in both Chicago and California was inadequate to the task. While the policies examined demonstrate recognition that low-performing schools need additional capacity if they are to substantially improve student outcomes, external support providers used limited and haphazard approaches, and as a result, the support component had little influence on teaching and learning. In addition, because the external supports relied on a market-like support structure with few other mechanisms to ensure quality, and because there was limited quantity (intensity) of support, the benefit that external assistance might otherwise have provided was limited. This was particularly problematic for the lowest capacity schools, many of which experienced limited change despite increased educator effort and involvement of external providers. In essence, external assistance through these school accountability policies did little to improve educator and organizational performance.