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School System must better meet the needs of all students. And they can. But to succeed, we can't just do more of the same. We need to transform. Building off of One Vision, Seven...
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By embracing a set of school-wide values, UP Academy creates an atmosphere of rigor and joy, one that leads students to internalize important, positive lifelong values. Students now have...
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See how Ridge Road Middle School in Charlotte, NC, transformed its student and adult culture through instituting strong schoolwide systems and routines.
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Effective shared-content teams reduce teacher workload, lowering the planning burden on any individual. They also reduce the expertise burden on each individual: every teacher’s plan...
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The number one factor impacting student achievement is teacher quality, and finding, developing, recognizing and retaining great educators is the key to the success of our students and...
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To make teacher teams work, Ashley Park has thought deliberately about the composition of teacher teams, created long blocks of time within the schedule to permit collaborative planning,...
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Data-driven instruction is the systematic use of common, standards-based assessments and other data to track student progress and adjust instruction and support—to drive meaningful...
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See how UP Academy in Dorchester, a neighborhood in Boston, MA, has made dramatic academic improvements by focusing on strategic collaboration among teachers.
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ERS’ School Designer tool integrates districts’ planning and budgeting processes so that key resource decisions, including those related to a school’s schedule, staffing plan, and budget,...
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Revere High School—located just outside Boston, MA—is successfully serving its students with disabilities using the co-teaching method. The school set up inclusive classrooms led by...
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When Dr. Lourenço Garcia became principal of Revere High School in 2012, he recognized that this traditional school design would need to change to better serve students and meet rising...
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Aldine Independent School District has faced daunting challenges and achieved impressive results since the early 1990s. This School System 20/20 case study explores how they did it.
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Under ESSA, state education agencies have the opportunity to establish a new vision for partnership with districts - one based on their powers to allocate, regulate, and importantly,...
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Too often, district efforts to create teacher leadership roles don’t last past the pilot phase. This checklist defines key steps to successful, sustainable, and scalable career...
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In this video, school district leaders from New York State share their plans for reallocating resources to meet student needs, and their vision for the state to help them succeed.
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ERS is now working with selected districts to perform the School System 20/20 Diagnostic—a data-informed, holistic series of assessments to help leaders in their efforts to redesign...
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Want to learn more about Student-Based Budgeting and how can it drive student learning?
See Our Latest Toolkit
This webinar is based on our publication, Following the Dollars to the...
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More and more districts—and several states—are adopting funding models like student-based budgeting (also called weighted student funding or fair student funding) to increase equity...
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These short papers highlight common opportunities school systems have to yield big results for students by adjusting their current resource use. It is based on ERS' 10 years of close...
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In 2011, Lawrence Public Schools was the first district that Massachusetts placed into state receivership due to poor performance. By 2014, things had dramatically changed for the better....
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Effective teachers are the biggest in-school factor related to student success. Across the country, a diverse set of districts are pioneering innovative approaches to teacher compensation...
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See what the individual professional growth process looks like at the Match Community Day Charter School in Boston. This video illustrates the training, observations, and coaching...
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K–12 education resources are often allocated non-strategically, with schools spending time and money on activities that have little relationship to student outcomes. States can help...
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With the enactment of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) in 2013, California districts face an unprecedented opportunity to make big changes. With increased budgets and more...
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Making school schedules is something district and school leaders must do every year — but during COVID-19, that job has just gotten harder. We've created a set of COVID Comeback Models...
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Recently, there has been growing interest in adapting Return on Investment thinking to education. But most ROI analysis still misses a big opportunity. Education leaders need a new...
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In recent years, school districts have found themselves in turbulent waters. They face quickly rising academic standards, a greater focus on teacher effectiveness, rapidly changing...
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ERS worked with a cross-functional team from the Boston Public Schools (BPS) in 2014 to assess the role of school autonomy in improving student outcomes. This video pulls together some of...
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