News: Grade Retention

When State Policy Undermines Effective Practice: Too Much of Anything Often Results in Nothing (or Worse)

New Blog resolves the instructional dilemma of having to choose between (a) providing critical intervention opportunities to high school students with significant prerequisite skills gaps in literacy,...

Read Full Article

Teaching Students Needed Academic and Social-Emotional Skills: We Need to Sweat the Small Stuff

Blog describes five vignettes that reinforce the importance that educators and related services professionals “sweat the small stuff.” We demonstrate that, to make big and meaningful academic and soci...

Read Full Article

Closing the (Pandemic?) Reading Gap in Our Schools: We Need to Link Sound Assessment with Strategic Intervention

Blog critiques August 4, 2022 National Center for Education Statistics report identifying how many students ended the past school year with literacy skill gaps. Also critiquing three follow-up popular...

Read Full Article

Literacy Instruction and Student Reading Proficiency: The Multi-Tiered Whole Must be Greater than the Sum of Its Disconnected Parts (Part I)

How a Comprehensive Blueprint Prevents Isolated Solutions and Inconsistent ResultsDear Colleagues,Introduction   Well. . . “all of a sudden,” there has been a nationwide rush of policy, publ...

Read Full Article

Reconsidering What Effective High Schools Do, and What Failing High Schools Miss

Credit Recovery Programs Should be Strategic, Selective, Student-Focused, and Not the Only Game in TownDear Colleagues,Introduction:  What Really is an “Effective” High School?   I cons...

Read Full Article

School Improvement, Strategic Planning, ESEA, and Multi-Tiered Services: An Anthology of Previous Blogs

Integrating Successful Research-to-Practice Strategies into the New School Year (Part I of II)Dear Colleagues,Introduction   While some of you are starting to “trickle” back to your schools, districts...

Read Full Article