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Resources for States and Districts

Meeting the Goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

The following resources and materials can help districts and states meet ARRA's goals and principles — closing achievement gaps and helping students from all backgrounds achieve high standards.

• Standards and Assessments
• Low-Performing Schools
  • Choice and Charters
• Teacher Effectiveness
  • Literacy
  • Mathematics
  • Science
• Special Education
• English Learners
• Early Childhood

Standards and Assessments

Making progress toward rigorous standards and high-quality assessments

Webinar

Making Progress on Essential Standards and Assessment Reforms
As part of a series of WestEd-sponsored webinars related to education goals of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Stanley Rabinowitz, Director of the WestEd/CRESST Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center, will describe innovative state-level strategies to define, develop, and benchmark (nationally and internationally) rigorous college/career-ready core standards. These strategies include considerations for English learners, students with disabilities, and low-performing students. In this free webinar, Rabinowitz will also discuss implications of such standards for high-quality assessment systems that are aligned and balanced.

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: Assessment and Accountability
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on assessment and accountability, including topics such as monitoring academic progress, classroom assessment, benchmark analysis, and school case studies. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement — each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

AACC Data Use Website
The AACC Data Use Website, developed to help regional centers, states, and other education agencies improve their use of data and increase student achievement, contains 4 key components:

• A guide for the effective use of data to improve educational decision-making
• A map of key capacities needed at each educational level to support effective data use
• Standards and criteria for evaluating data tools and selecting diagnostic assessments
• A comprehensive listing of research-based guidance on effective data use

Framework for High-Quality English Language Proficiency Standards and Assessments
Prepared by the Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center (AACC) at WestEd, the Framework for High-Quality English Language Proficiency Standards and Assessments provides criteria for developing, implementing, and evaluating high-quality English language proficiency standards and assessments that support English learners’ attainment of English language proficiency and achievement of academic content.

Guidelines for Ensuring the Technical Quality of Assessments Affecting English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities: Development and Implementation of Regulations
The Guidelines provide research-based information on key issues relevant to the technical quality of assessments for English learners and students with disabilities. This is an evolving document, and will be updated periodically to incorporate new information and research.

New York Formative Assessment Technical Assistance Study
This project is a pilot study that weds expertise at the national, regional, state, and district levels

• to develop capacity within the comprehensive center system in providing technical assistance;
• to provide guidance and technical assistance to help regional, state, and district leaders make informed decisions about effective data use that are focused on state and local needs and goals;
• to train staff at different levels (region, state, district) to assume leadership roles in the area of formative assessment; and
• to build capacity at the state and district levels to ensure sustainability of the initiative.

New York Formative Assessment Technical Assistance Project: Lessons Learned
This project has focused on increasing the use of formative assessment practices in Syracuse City School District pilot schools and classrooms. The "lessons learned" provide a reflective list of findings relative to both the challenges and successes experienced by the collaborating partners focused on the development of formative assessment practice within the district.

The Technical Adequacy of Assessments for Alternate Student Populations(PDF)
These guidelines are designed to assist developers and consumers of assessments for English language learners in particular and special student populations in general. They are intended to help evaluate the technical adequacy (i.e., validity, reliability, freedom from bias) of assessments used to meet relevant Title I and Title III requirements under No Child Left Behind.

Research and Reports

Alternative Assessments for Special Education Students in the Southwest Region States
In 2003, the U.S. Department of Education issued regulations allowing states to develop alternate standards and assessments for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. This study reviews and summarizes alternate assessment policies and practices and their implementation and impact for the most significantly cognitively disabled students, across the five states in the Southwest Region.

English Language Proficiency Assessment in the Nation: Current Status and Future Practice
Has standardized testing measuring English language proficiency improved since the federal No Child Left Behind Act was passed? Read this report to find out.

Evaluation of the Technical Evidence of Assessments for Special Student Populations (PDF)
This evaluation updates and extends the work presented in Technical Adequacy of Assessments for Alternate Student Populations (Rabinowitz & Sato, 2005). This project is ongoing and is intended to inform developers and consumers of assessments for special student populations, including English learners and students with disabilities. The evaluation focuses on the technical adequacy of evidence related to assessments used to meet relevant Title I and Title III requirements under NCLB.

Formative Assessment Policies, Programs, and Practices in the Southwest Region
Formative assessments help educators target instructional practices to meet specific student needs and monitor and support student progress toward valued state learning outcomes. Policies and programs in the five Southwest Region states suggest a range of strategies to support the development and use of formative assessments.

Measuring How Benchmark Assessments Affect Student Achievement
This report examines a Massachusetts pilot program for quarterly benchmark exams in middle-school mathematics. Researchers found that program schools do not show greater gains in student achievement after a year, but they note that this may reflect limited data rather than the ineffectiveness of using benchmark assessments.

What We Must Do to Create a System That Prepares Students for College Success
What must be done to create a more aligned educational system that prepares students for college success? This Policy Perspectives paper tells you how.

Low-Performing Schools

Providing targeted, intensive support and effective interventions to turn around schools identified for corrective action and restructuring

Webinars

Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools: Resources From Doing What Works
This webinar will offer research-based recommendations to improve low-performing schools from the IES Practice Guide, which offers a set of four research-based recommendations. The webinar also will showcase resources from the Doing What Works website, illustrating how these recommendations have been carried out successfully.

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: School Improvement
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on school improvement, including topics such as data use and mentoring, classroom assessment, teacher collaboration, response to intervention, and school case studies. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement—each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: District Improvement
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on district improvement, including topics such as resource allocation, school choice, supplemental educational services, personnel, and district case studies. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement—each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

Central Office Inquiry: Assessing Organization, Roles, and Functions to Support School Improvement
Drawing on a three-year study, this book helps central office leadership and staff examine their current school improvement efforts and consider how to provide more cohesive, effective support to their schools.

The Data Coach's Guide to Improving Learning for All Students: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry
This volume provides detailed guidance for helping schools move away from unproductive data practices and toward examining data as a catalyst for systematic and continuous improvement in instruction and student learning.

Developing an Effective School Plan: An Activity-Based Guide to Understanding Your School and Improving Student Outcomes
Developing an Effective School Plan includes a Change Manager’s Handbook, Facilitation Notes, and a CD-ROM of the activities and interactive tools. Using this resource, schools develop a context-specific improvement plan that concretely addresses four essential questions: Where are we now? Where do we want to go? How will we get there? How will we know when we’ve arrived? A significant and intentional result of this process is increased school capacity to identify and analyze key data to inform decisions — about what goes into the plan, how the plan is carried out, and how success is measured.

Healthy Kids Survey
The Healthy Kids Survey is a comprehensive youth risk behavior and resilience data collection service, and a leading source of information about student risk behaviors and resiliency factors that offset such risks. It has led to better understanding of the relationship between students’ health behaviors and academic performance, and informs policies for preventing problem behaviors among youth.

R&D Alert® Vol. 8, No. 2
Focus on Turning Around Low-Performing Schools and Districts
Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and numerous state initiatives, the number of schools and districts identified as low-performing has grown enormously, often outpacing efforts to address their needs. This issue of R&D Alert describes resources, strategies, and research findings that offer promise for making a difference in these academically troubled schools and districts.

R&D Alert® Vol. 8, No. 1
Focus on Using Data to Drive Reform
This issue of R&D Alert focuses on a perennial challenge in education and human development: how to make the most of information, whether test results, research findings, or other data. What happens with all the data generated by testing students? How do we ensure that the information is accurate, relevant, and timely? How do the results translate into improvements in practice?

Research and Reports

Characteristics of Arizona School Districts in Improvement
This descriptive analysis, prepared by REL West, provides a statistical profile of Arizona's lowest performing school districts, which can inform the context for district improvement as Arizona rolls out and refines its district intervention strategies.

Characteristics of California School Districts in Program Improvement
This descriptive analysis, prepared by REL West, provides a statistical profile of California’s Title I school districts in program improvement. As an independent analysis of these districts in the aggregate, it is intended to inform the context for district improvement as California rolls out and refines its district intervention strategies.

Characteristics of California School Districts in Program Improvement: 2008 Update
This descriptive analysis, prepared by REL West, updates an earlier study of California's Title I school districts in program improvement, Characteristics of California School Districts in Program Improvement. This brief reveals that by aggregating student data to the district level, California’s accountability system continues to be able to identify shortfalls in student academic performance that are not picked up when looking only at the school level.

Ensuring That No Child Is Left Behind: How Are Student Health Risks & Resilience Related to the Academic Progress of Schools?
This report raises a critical question facing educators today: Have efforts to raise student test scores come at the expense of basic supports for student well-being — for example, nutrition and school safety — that motivate and facilitate learning?

Expanding School Time to Expand School Learning: Lessons Learned and Challenges Remaining
Would adding two hours of school every day raise student academic achievement and ensure a well-rounded education? Find out in this new Policy Perspectives paper.

The Feasibility of Mandating School Breakfast in California's Severe Need Schools: Costs, Challenges, and Recommendations
Prepared by WestEd and the California Department of Education, this report recommends a state requirement that severe need schools provide nutritious, cost-effective breakfasts for their students, improving their capacity to learn and grow into healthy, productive adults.

Implementation of the Weighted Student Formula Policy in San Francisco: A Descriptive Study of an Equity-Driven, Student-Based Planning and Budgeting Policy
This report, prepared by REL West, describes the planning and implementation of San Francisco's weighted student formula policy, an equity-driven, student-based planning and budgeting policy.

Measuring Resilience and Youth Development: The Psychometric Properties of the Healthy Kids Survey
This report, prepared by REL West, summarizes findings from a study of the psychometric properties of a key component of the Healthy Kids Survey. The study aims to improve resilience assessment and research so that educators can shape the school environment to promote academic resilience.

Piloting a Searchable Database of Dropout Prevention Programs in Nine Low-Income Urban School Districts in the Northeast and Islands Region
While there is evidence that some dropout prevention programs have positive effects, the degree to which districts in the region are using evidence-based programs has not been documented. This report details a pilot project to generate and share knowledge by building a searchable database of dropout prevention programs and policies.

Reenrollment of High School Dropouts in a Large, Urban School District
This study, prepared by REL West, follows a cohort of first-time 9th graders in one large urban school district from 2001/02 to 2005/06 and documents dropout, reenrollment, and graduation rates.

Reforms That Could Help Narrow the Achievement Gap
Richard Rothstein explains why addressing the wide income gap between lower- and middle-class parents could be one of education’s most important reform efforts. Rothstein highlights a number of other reforms in this new Policy Perspectives paper that could help narrow the academic achievement gap.

A Synthesis of Recent California Education Reform Recommendations
This brief analyzes and synthesizes four prominent California education reform initiatives proposed by the California Dropout Research Project, the Governor's Committee on Education Excellence, the Superintendent's P-16 Council, and Getting Down to Facts.

Choice and Charters

Resources

BuildingChoice.org
BuildingChoice.org, developed by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education, is a web-based toolkit for district administrators and others seeking to expand or improve public school choice options for parents, teachers, and students.

Evaluation Toolkit for Magnet School Programs
The Evaluation Toolkit for Magnet School Programs, developed by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education, offers practical advice and resources informed by research and the experiences of magnet directors and their partner evaluators. The toolkit supports district administrators to strengthen the six essential components of the evaluation process.

Transform My School
This website, developed by WestEd and the California Charter Schools Association, is a resource for schools considering becoming a charter school as an option for addressing school improvement under NCLB. It provides multimedia stories and resources from the recent transformation of three charter schools in the San Diego Unified School District: Keiller Leadership Academy, Gompers Charter Middle School, and King-Chavez Academies. Their stories are told through videos, sample materials, case studies, and slideshows, providing a window into each school's improvement process.

Research and Reports

Connecting Students to Advanced Courses Online
This guide, written by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, highlights six providers of academic course work that are using Internet technology to deliver rigorous curricula to students.

Creating and Sustaining Successful K-8 Magnet Schools
This report, written by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, shares "lessons learned" regarding how specialized magnet programs can spark enthusiasm for learning and catalyze academic growth, especially for students whose interests and aptitudes may not be fulfilled by their neighborhood schools.

Engaging Parents in Education: Lessons From Five Parental Information and Resource Centers
This free guide highlights five Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs) and how they have collaborated with other partners to enhance parental involvement in education. It describes the promising practices and strategies each of these organizations has implemented to maximize parental involvement in schools.

Evaluating Online Learning: Challenges and Strategies for Success
This free publication, written by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, features seven evaluations of online learning programs or resources. The evaluations represent variety both in method of evaluation and in the program or resource that was examined.

K-8 Charter Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap
This free guide, written by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, profiles seven charter schools in high-poverty communities with historically underserved children that are making headway in narrowing gaps in achievement.

Making Charter School Facilities More Affordable: State-driven Policy Approaches
This free guide, written by WestEd for the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, profiles policy interventions from eight states and the District of Columbia that have been developed to help charter schools address various facilities-related challenges.

Successful Magnet High Schools
This report profiles eight successful magnet high schools, analyzes their common characteristics, and examines the strategies that have allowed these schools to demonstrate sustained success.

Supporting Charter School Excellence Through Quality Authorizing
This free guide focuses on the role of charter authorizers in contributing to the quality and success of charter schools. This publication highlights eight charter school authorizers that are advancing the quality and growth of charter schools.

Teacher Effectiveness

Increasing teacher effectiveness and addressing inequities in the distribution of highly qualified teachers through leadership

Webinars

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: Teacher Effectiveness
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on teacher effectiveness, including topics such as mentoring and coaching, induction, recruitment and retention, and school case studies. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement—each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (CPSEL)
We know that quality leadership matters in improving schools, districts, and student achievement. But what is quality leadership? The California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders, also known as the Comprehensive Professional Standards for Educational Leaders, lay out quality standards for site and district leaders.

Keeping Quality Teachers: The Art of Retaining General and Special Education Teachers
This user-friendly tool for retaining quality teachers — especially those in special education — contains a framework for action that can be used to create a plan at the school or district level, or to strengthen existing plans.

Mentoring New Teachers Through Collaborative Coaching Set
What are the best approaches for developing effective mentors and improving the professional growth and effectiveness of new teachers? WestEd’s Kathy Dunne and Susan Villani, who share over 30 years experience in providing teacher induction leadership nationwide, have created a comprehensive approach to content-based mentoring and coaching. The result is an effective research-based model that benefits mentors and teachers alike — all in the service of students. Includes training and implementation materials.

R&D Alert® Vol. 10, No. 2
Focus on Professional Development
Teacher quality is key to student success, and teachers need opportunities throughout their careers to continue learning and growing. This issue of R&D Alert focuses on professional development, with articles describing a variety of approaches to providing effective professional development, lessons learned from successful programs, and research on professional development.

Research and Reports

An Analysis of State Data on the Distribution of Teaching Assignments Filled by Highly Qualified Teachers in New York Schools
A high percentage of core teaching assignments in New York rural schools and districts are filled by highly qualified teachers, with only small differences across key factors such as school poverty and school need for improvement. The state's urban schools — particularly those in New York City — have fewer core assignments filled by highly qualified teachers.

The Distribution of Teaching and Learning Resources in California's Middle and High Schools
This report, prepared by REL West, presents findings from a study examining educational resources in California's middle and high schools. It found that access to these resources is not equal among schools that serve different student populations. Overall, the most disadvantaged populations of students are likely to have the least access to the resources necessary for learning.

Teachers Who Learn, Kids Who Achieve: A Look at Schools with Model Professional Development
What does it take to translate teacher professional development into impressive learning gains for students? A study of eight schools that won the U.S. Department of Education’s National Award for Model Professional Development has been distilled into this brief and compelling story of successful school reform.

Trends in California Teacher Demand: A County and Regional Perspective
This report, prepared by REL West, highlights the differences among California’s counties and regions in their use of underprepared teachers and their expected needs for new teachers in the coming decade as driven by projected student enrollment changes and teacher retirements. The findings show county and regional variations in key factors that influence teacher labor markets.

Policy Brief: Ensuring Teacher Quality: A Continuum of Teacher Preparation and Development
That student achievement and good teaching are connected is intuitive. But just how important is high-quality teaching, and what do we know about how to get it? This policy brief examines the impact of teaching on student achievement, the necessary steps for ensuring that we prepare and support an effective teaching force, and the policies needed for such an effort.

Policy Perspectives: Finding the Teachers We Need
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act brings new urgency to the debate over teacher recruitment, preparation, and induction. Under NCLB, states must ensure that every public school classroom is staffed by a highly qualified teacher. Based on the recently published, A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom? Appraising Old Answers and New Ideas (Harvard Education Press), this Policy Perspectives paper lays out new approaches for ensuring high-quality teacher preparation while offering a candid assessment of the obstacles that may impede implementation of such approaches.

Policy Brief: Teacher Supply & Quality: The Changing Role of Community Colleges
States working to develop comprehensive systems for addressing teacher workforce demands, including the renewed emphasis on teacher quality under No Child Left Behind, must be creative — looking not only at traditional teacher preparation systems, but at alternative options as well. Emerging as one of the more promising of these options are community colleges, many of which have already moved into some aspect of teacher preparation and support. This brief explains why many believe these two-year institutions are logical candidates for the role; provides examples of how states, community colleges, and traditional four-year institutions are working together in this endeavor; and offers related policy guidance.

Reforming Teacher Pay: The Search for a Workable Goal-Driven Compensation System
This Policy Trends report examines the growing interest in and the challenges of implementing a differentiated compensation system that rewards educators for performance. It also outlines key considerations for developing such a system.

Literacy

Webinars

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: Literacy
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on literacy. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of teacher effectiveness and school improvement — each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

Best Practices in Adolescent Literacy Instruction
From day-to-day learning activities to schoolwide goals, this engaging book reviews key topics in literacy instruction, grades 5-12, and provides research-based recommendations for practice. Leading scholars present culturally responsive strategies for motivating adolescents (including English learners and struggling readers), vivid case studies, thoughtful discussion questions and activities, and detailed ideas for program and lesson planning.

Building a Knowledge Base in Reading, Second Edition
This publication of the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English provides preservice and inservice teachers with the latest findings about evidence-based literacy instruction. Jane Braunger, Senior Research Associate in WestEd's Strategic Literacy Initiative, and coauthors explore the 13 core understandings about how students learn to read and what teachers can do to help them.

Discussion Builders Classroom Posters
These posters and accompanying teaching guides scaffold progressively more complex reasoning across the grades. In K-1 the focus is on helping students present, expand, and reflect on important ideas. In grades 2-3, Discussion Builders prompt students to use these skills at more sophisticated levels. The 4-8 poster strengthens students’ complex reasoning, including their abilities to consider counter-examples and conjectures and to justify options.

Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research
WestEd's Ruth Schoenbach and Cynthia Greenleaf author a key chapter in the Handbook of Adolescent Literacy Research. The first comprehensive research handbook of its kind, these distinguished contributors examine how well adolescents are served by current instructional practices and highlight ways to translate research findings more effectively into sound teaching and policymaking.

Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Reading in Middle and High School Classrooms
This practical guidebook provides concrete lessons for middle and high school teachers about how to support students' reading in the disciplines, as well as the theoretical underpinnings of the approach — Reading Apprenticeship®. The guide is based on work in which students in an urban ninth-grade class gained an average of two years on a standardized reading test in just seven months and learned to love to read in the process.

Research and Reports

An Analysis of Utah's K-3 Reading Improvement Program
This report, prepared by REL West, finds that more districts and charter schools in Utah reported implementing key elements of the state literacy framework and meeting their own goals in Year 2 of the Reading Improvement Program.

Literacy Instruction in the Content Areas: Getting to the Core of Middle and High School Improvement
More than six million of the nation’s secondary school students fall well short of grade-level expectations in reading and writing. This report urges higher expectations for all students in reading and writing, and a new approach to improving these skills in the core content areas of math, science, English, and history.

Why Do We Have a Knowledge Deficit?
Why are reading scores low? Because educators emphasize comprehension strategies instead of teaching the broad general core knowledge that is chiefly needed for reading comprehension, according to E. D. Hirsch in this WestEd Policy Perspectives paper.

Mathematics

Webinars

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: Mathematics
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on mathematics, including topics such as leadership in mathematics professional development and English learners and the language of mathematics. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement and teacher effectiveness — each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

Designing Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics (2nd Edition)
Drawing on the research, literature, and wisdom of experienced professional developers, this book presents best practices to help professional developers, administrators, and teacher leaders design learning experiences for mathematics and science teachers that are directly linked to improving student learning. A bridge between theory and practice, this book is a comprehensive tool for professional developers.

Learning to Lead Mathematics Professional Development
Designed for mathematics professional development leaders, this set of case-based leadership materials helps build facilitation skills, content knowledge, and pedagogy to design and implement effective staff development programs.

R&D Alert® Vol. 9, No. 1 / Focus on Improving Mathematics and Science Education (PDF)
Concerned with the quality of the nation's mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, the federal government in 2007 created the "America COMPETES Act," authorizing programs to shore up education and research in these subjects. Building on WestEd's extensive expertise in mathematics and science, this issue of R&D Alert describes strategies and lessons learned from some of WestEd's most successful efforts in these areas.

Research and Reports

Examining the Links Between Grade 12 Mathematics Coursework and Mathematics Remediation in Nevada Public Colleges and Universities
This study, prepared by REL West, examines the links between the grade 12 mathematics courses that Nevada students take and the likelihood of students needing to take remedial mathematics courses in Nevada’s public colleges and universities. It analyzes remediation rates by students’ highest-level grade 12 mathematics course, their grade 12 mathematics grade point average, and various student and school characteristics.

Measuring How Benchmark Assessments Affect Student Achievement
This report examines a Massachusetts pilot program for quarterly benchmark exams in middle-school mathematics. Researchers found that program schools do not show greater gains in student achievement after a year, but they note that this may reflect limited data rather than the ineffectiveness of using benchmark assessments.

Rethinking High School: Supporting All Students to be College Ready in Math
Many students identify themselves as being in one of two camps: Those who can do math and those who can't. Such labels may be assumed by the students themselves or unconsciously assigned to them by the adults in their lives based on students' math achievement. This report profiles three high schools supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that have successfully implemented mathematics programs that prepare all students for college.

Science

Webinars

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: Science
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on science. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement and teacher effectiveness — each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

Making Science Accessible to English Learners: A Guidebook for Teachers, Updated Edition
This updated edition of the bestselling guidebook helps middle and high school science teachers reach English learners in their classrooms. The guide offers practical guidance, powerful and concrete strategies, and sample lesson scenarios that can be implemented immediately in any science class.

Partnership for the Assessment of Standards-Based Science
Are your schools and students making meaningful progress toward science literacy? The Partnership for the Assessment of Standards-Based Science assessment tools will help you answer that question by measuring your students' growth against national and local science standards.

R&D Alert® Vol. 9, No. 1 / Focus on Improving Mathematics and Science Education (PDF)
Concerned with the quality of the nation's mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, the federal government in 2007 created the "America COMPETES Act," authorizing programs to shore up education and research in these subjects. Building on WestEd's extensive expertise in mathematics and science, this issue of R&D Alert describes strategies and lessons learned from some of WestEd's most successful efforts in these areas.

Weaving Science Inquiry and Continuous Assessment: Using Formative Assessment to Improve Learning
With over a decade of experience working with hundreds of science teachers, the authors have developed a program that enables teachers to identify difficult areas of student learning and to modify teaching strategies to further student success. This constant assessment also allows teachers to identify troublesome concepts and address them before the state and local assessments are given and the results tabulated.

Research and Reports

The Status of Science Education in Bay Area Elementary Schools
The San Francisco Bay Area is a center of scientific and technological innovation. It is thus surprising that recent test results indicate inadequate achievement in science among the region's elementary school students. This report explores the reasons behind the students' poor performance in science – from limited time allotted to science in classrooms and under-prepared teachers to lack of professional development opportunities for the teaching force – as well as ways policymakers, educators, and the larger community can help improve elementary science education.

Special Education

Ensuring that children with disabilities, including children aged three through five, have access to a free, appropriate public education to meet each child's unique needs and prepare him or her for further education, employment, and independent living

Webinars

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: Special Education
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on IDEA and special education, response to intervention, differentiated instruction, and inclusion. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement—each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

California Inclusive Child Care
This online resource includes information on caring for infants and toddlers with special needs in inclusive settings, family partnerships, California's system of inclusive child care, and more.

Research and Reports

Alternative Assessments for Special Education Students in the Southwest Region States
In 2003, the U.S. Department of Education issued regulations allowing states to develop alternate standards and assessments for students with the most significant cognitive disabilities. This study reviews and summarizes alternate assessment policies and practices and their implementation and impact for the most significantly cognitively disabled students, across the five states in the Southwest Region.

Training Early Intervention Assistants in California's Community Colleges
This report, prepared by REL West, examines California's efforts to foster preservice preparation of early intervention assistants for infants and toddlers with special needs through the Community College Personnel Preparation Project, a certificate program offered by participating community colleges.

English Learners

Addressing inequities and achievement gaps, and making progress toward rigorous college- and career-ready standards and high-quality assessments that are valid and reliable for English learners

Webinars

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: English Learners
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on English learners, including topics such as NCLB Title III, literacy, content area instruction, accountability, standards, and assessments. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement—each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

Making Science Accessible to English Learners: A Guidebook for Teachers, Updated Edition
This updated edition of the bestselling guidebook helps middle and high school science teachers reach English learners in their classrooms. The guide offers practical guidance, powerful and concrete strategies, and sample lesson scenarios that can be implemented immediately in any science class.

The Map of Standards for English Learners, Set: Grades K-5 and 6-12
This standards map presents California’s English Language Development (ELD) standards and English Language Arts (ELA) standards side-by-side and organized in a logical, pedagogical way. This resource tool supports teachers in designing instruction that integrates ELD and ELA standards and appropriate assessment. The Map also highlights "essential" standards — those most heavily assessed on California's tests (California Standards Tests and California High School Exit Exam) and the ELD standards assessed on the California English Language Development Test (CELDT).

R&D Alert® Vol. 10, No. 1
Focus on English Learners
Providing effective support for the nation's rapidly growing population of English learners has become a top priority of schools throughout the U.S. This R&D Alert samples from WestEd's wide-ranging expertise in this area. It describes the latest research-based practices and lessons learned, addresses issues of professional development, policy, and practice, and covers the needs of English learners from preschool through high school.

Research and Reports

Framework for High-Quality English Language Proficiency Standards and Assessments
Prepared by the Assessment and Accountability Comprehensive Center (AACC) at WestEd, the Framework for High-Quality English Language Proficiency Standards and Assessments provides criteria for developing, implementing, and evaluating high-quality English language proficiency standards and assessments that support English learners’ attainment of English language proficiency and achievement of academic content.

Guidelines for Ensuring the Technical Quality of Assessments Affecting English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities: Development and Implementation of Regulations
The Guidelines provide research-based information on key issues relevant to the technical quality of assessments for English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities (SWDs). This is an evolving document, and will be updated periodically to incorporate new information and research.

English Language Proficiency Assessment in the Nation: Current Status and Future Practice
Has standardized testing measuring English language proficiency improved since the federal No Child Left Behind Act was passed? Read this report to find out.

Improving Literacy Outcomes for English Language Learners in High School: Considerations for States and Districts in Developing a Coherent Policy Framework
This research brief, published by the National High School Center, outlines current barriers to English learners' academic success regarding teacher expectations, tracking, and placement.

Similar English Learner Students, Different Results: Why Do Some Schools Do Better?
How elementary schools focus their time and energies, and what resources they have for doing it, can make a powerful difference in the academic achievement of English learners from low-income backgrounds, according to findings from this new research brief.

Early Childhood

Expanding early childhood educational opportunities and creating a more seamless web of high-quality services for parents and children

Webinars

Early Head Start: Providing a Quality Comprehensive Program for Infants, Toddlers and Their Families, Part I
The Office of Head Start will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the expansion of Early Head Start throughout the nation, using the additional funding available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In response to the RFP, First 5 California, in partnership with WestEd's Center for Child & Family Studies, the California Head Start Association, and Preschool California, are conducting two webinars to assist Head Start/Early Head Start grantees, school districts, and community-based organizations in thinking about their capacity to effectively serve infants and toddlers.

Early Head Start: Providing a Quality Comprehensive Program for Infants, Toddlers and Their Families, Part II
This webinar will continue the discussion from Early Head Start: Providing a Quality Comprehensive Program for Infants, Toddlers and Their Families, Part I. Kay Wernert, Director of Marin Head Start; Cheryl Williams-Jackson, Instructor in the Child Development Department, Modesto Junior College; and Pamm Shaw, Executive Director of the Berkeley-Albany YMCA Early Childhood Services Branch, will further support participants in assessing whether or not applying for Early Head Start funds is appropriate for their agency. Program and fiscal blending, including successful blended models, will be discussed. In order to make the most of this webinar, it is highly recommended that participants either join the live webinar of Part I or view the archive.

SchoolsMovingUp Webinars: Early Childhood
Browse WestEd's SchoolsMovingUp webinar archives on early childhood. Watch and listen to full web presentations by leaders in the field of school improvement—each archive includes questions, discussions, and accompanying resources from the live webinar.

Resources

Battered Agencies: Supporting Those Who Serve Low-Income Communities
This 34-page research report identifies problems that are common to and impede the effectiveness of community-based family support agencies serving low-income communities. Drawing from on-the-ground experience and research literature, the authors identify the stressors experienced by such agencies and make recommendations for strengthening the agencies.

California Inclusive Child Care
This online resource includes a collection of websites, tools, and materials for supporting all children's learning and healthy development.

California Preschool Instructional Network
This website contains a wide range of information for improving preschool education throughout California, including upcoming events, the California Preschool Online Learning Center, the Preschool Learning Foundations, the Desired Results for Children and Families, and available resources.

Concepts for Care: 20 Essays on Infant/Toddler Development and Learning
In this volume prepared by WestEd's Center for Child and Family Studies, the nation's leading experts in infant/toddler development have contributed succinct essays drawn from research, theory, clinical case studies, and carefully documented practice. Each essay represents current thinking in the field of infant/toddler development and care. Individually and as a collection, the essays provide a springboard for reflection, discussion, and further exploration, especially for infant/toddler professionals seeking to enhance their programs and for students in the field of early care and education.

Desired Results for Children and Families
This online resource describes the California Department of Education Child Development Division's revised approach to evaluating the child care and development services it provides. The new approach, compatible with California's K-12 accountability system, moves away from a process-oriented compliance model and towards a focus on the results desired from the system. The website includes tools, forms, profiles, and other resources.

Great Expectations: The E3 Institute-San Jose State University Bachelor's Degree Cohort Program for CARES Participants in Santa Clara County
Learn how a partnership between WestEd's E3 Institute and San Jose State University is improving the quality of early childhood care and education for children and families by helping working early childhood educators, many of whom experience barriers to traditional coursework, earn a bachelor's degree.

Nurturing the Nurturers: The Importance of Sound Relationships in Early Childhood Intervention
Sound relationships are the essence of Marin City Families First, an early-intervention model designed by WestEd’s Center for Child and Family Studies to ensure the health and well-being of children in low-income communities. The report describes how home visitors support client families and how, in turn, home visitors receive support from the program supervisor. A case study illustrates how these supportive relationships play out with one family.

Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC)
The Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC), developed collaboratively by WestEd and the California Department of Education, is a comprehensive training system that promotes responsive, caring relationships for infants and toddlers. Through PITC, WestEd has produced a series of award-winning videos and supporting materials. The products include video magazines, curriculum guides, trainer's manuals, and related materials — all providing easy-to-follow techniques to ensure emotionally secure and intellectually engaging group child care. Videos are available in English, Cantonese, and Spanish. The series is organized into four modules, each containing videos and print materials.

R&D Alert® Vol. 7, No. 3
Focus on Early Childhood Education
While the importance of early childhood education has long been recognized, traditional ideas of "school readiness" may be outdated. The first years of life do not simply set the stage for school — they are uniquely important in their own right.

WestEd E3 Institute
WestEd's E3 Institute supports and strengthens early childhood and preschool professional development through education, recruitment, and financial incentives. The Institute serves California's Santa Clara County and reaches new recruits, family child care providers, center-based programs, programs for children with special needs, employers, faith-based providers, and the corporate community with the goal of leveraging local resources for child care professionals, especially through the Comprehensive Approaches to Raising Educational Standards (CARES) program. WestEd's E3 Institute is also home to the innovative Power of Preschool program.

Research and Reports

Early Childhood Investment Yields Big Payoff
Robert G. Lynch makes a compelling case for a nationwide investment in a high-quality early childhood development program for children, especially for those living in poverty.

Social and Emotional Well-Being: The Foundation for School Readiness
Although infant mental health work continues to expand, the message remains consistent: focusing on early relationships between young children and their caregivers has lifelong implications for achieving healthy social and emotional well-being.