NICHCY Connections...to What Works: Can We Say?

What works? What Works. We hear those words a lot these days, sometimes as a statement, sometimes as a question. Millions of dollars have been expended trying to determine what's effective in...you name it---teaching children, teaching children with disabilities, teaching math and every other subject in school, training teachers, hiring teachers and keeping them, administering sound educational programs, keeping our children from dropping out of school, graduating them with solid skills...and on and on. Educating children is a complex business, and every facet of it contributes to (or can detract from!) the functioning of the whole. So--what have we found out? What can we say after all the research we've conducted, all the journals that tell what's been discovered, all the experience we combine? Do we know what's effective, what works in building educational systems and practices that will serve our children?

First Toe in the Water

• What exactly IS "scientifically based research?"
  The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) calls for the use of "scientifically based research" as the foundation for many education programs and for classroom instruction. Leading experts in the fields of education and science came together at a seminar hosted by the Department of Education and discussed the meaning of scientifically based research and its status across various disciplines. Find out what they said in these transcripts, available online at: www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/whatworks/research/index.html
• What works in education?
  The WWC---the What Works Clearinghouse---has been established to answer that very question. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, the WWC is expected to serve as a central source of scientific evidence of what works in education. They are starting off their investigations by focusing on seven topics of high interest (for example, interventions for beginning reading). Read all about the WWC and follow their findings as they emerge, at: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/
  
  Read all about it online at:
  www.whatworks.ed.gov
• Research Connections in Special Education.
  http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/osep-sp.html#recon
  This is a publication reviewing OSEP-sponsored research on topics in special education. As such, it may very well be the first toe you put in the research waters of special education. Thirteen issues were developed by the OSEP/ERIC Special Project. Any of these topics interest you?
  
  
  • Paraprofessionals
  • Strengthening the first R
  • Strengthening the second R
  • Improving family involvement in special education
  • Homework practices that support students with disabilities
  • Improving results for culturally and linguistically diverse students
  • New ideas for planning transitions to the adult world
  • There are more---at the link above. Go have a look at what OSEP-funded research has to tell

Improving School Systems

Are you an administrator, school leader, department chair, superintendent, policy maker---or just a concerned stakeholder? If administrative matters concern you, look here for guidance and published research that may help address issues in your neck of the woods.

• Becoming friends with using data to make decisions.
  http://data.edreform.net/
  If you haven't yet embraced data as the basis for making decisions, you may want to pause and take a look at our Special Education Research: Where to Start?, if you haven't already. Look in particular at the two beginning sections: Research Basics and Applying Research, which will help you make data your fast friend.
• Help for schools.
  http://www.mc3edsupport.org/community/knowledgebases.php?node=8
  If you're in the driver's seat---or anywhere in the car!---you'll wanna come here. The School Improvement KnowledgeBase at the link above contains information and resources to help you improve your school using a step-by-step, well-designed process and hooking you up to the research base supporting each step.
• What works in comprehensive school reform?
  www.centerforcsri.org/
  Find out at the the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement. This online collection of tools and resources is designed to aid schools as they plan, implement, and sustain schoolwide reform programs. Be sure to delve into the School Reform and Improvement database and "Guides and Tools," which includes Unlocking the 11 Components of CSR.
• A quick overview of the research in comprehensive school reform.
  www.ed.gov/nclb/methods/whatworks/research/page_pg9.html
  The link above will take you to Becki Herman 's overview of what it means to apply the definition of scientifically based research to the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration Program.
• Looking for a practitioner's guide to school reform?
  www.centerforcsri.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=17
  Here's one that draws on scientifically based research. It's available online at the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement.
• And does school reform actually improve student achievement?
  www.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/techReports/Report59.pdf
  The link above will take you to Comprehensive School Reform and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis (2002), which reviews the research on the achievement effects of the nationally disseminated and externally developed school improvement programs known as "whole-school" or "comprehensive" reforms.
• Increasing rates of school completion: Moving from policy and research to practice.
  www.ncset.org/publications/essentialtools/dropout/default.asp
  From the National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET), May 2004.

Preparing & Keeping Good Teachers

• What works in teacher preparation?
  www.ecs.org/ecsmain.asp?page=/html/educationIssues/teachingquality/tpreport/index.asp
  This report from the Education Commission of the States reviews the body of research on teacher preparation to answer eight questions about teacher preparation that are of particular importance to policy and education leaders. Read Eight Questions on Teacher Preparation: What Does the Research Say?
• What works to keep teachers from leaving?
  http://www.all4ed.org/publication_material/reports/tapping_potential
  Did you know that one out of every two new teachers will quit within five years? About 207,000 teachers, nearly 6% of the teaching workforce, will not return to teaching next fall. Research shows that comprehensive induction cuts teacher attrition rates in half and develops new teachers more rapidly into highly skilled, experienced professionals. Read all about it in this report from the Alliance for Excellent Education.
• More on teacher recruitment and retention.
  www.rand.org/publications/TR/TR164/
  "A Review of the Research Literature on Teacher Recruitment and Retention" represents a comprehensive and critical examination of research published since 1980 on the topic of teacher recruitment and retention in the United States.

Helping Young Children

• What works in early childhood education?
  www.researchtopractice.info/
  Visit the Research and Training Center (RTC) on Early Childhood Development. Its mission is to promote and enhance the healthy development of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with or at risk for developmental delays or disabilities. The RTC was established to create a bridge between research evidence and early childhood intervention practices.
• What works with young children with disabilities?
  www.dec-sped.org
  The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children concerns itself directly with the question of what works with young children who have special needs, birth through age eight. Visit the site above and learn more about DEC's publications, which will put you in touch with evidence-based practices and strategies in early intervention and early childhood special education.
• Inclusion for young children with disabilities?
  www.fpg.unc.edu/~ecrii/index.html
  The Early Childhood Research Institute on Inclusion (ECRII) was a five year national research project funded by OSEP to study the inclusion of preschool children with disabilities in typical preschool, day care and community settings. The project ended on August 31, 2000, but its information is still available on the Web and includes An Administrator's Guide to Preschool Inclusion.
• What works with young children who have challenging behavior?
  http://challengingbehavior.fmhi.usf.edu/index.html
  Visit the Center for Evidence Based Practice: Young Children with Challenging Behavior (CEBPYCCB). Its mission is to promote the use of evidence-based practice to meet the needs of young children who have, or are at risk for, problem behavior. Its Web site will provide you with research syntheses on effective intervention procedures, presentation and workshop materials, training opportunities, and a wide variety of useful links.
• What's important when working with families who are culturally or linguistically diverse?
  www.clas.uiuc.edu/index.html
  The Early Childhood Research Institute on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) can tell you.
• How do we measure children's progress?
  http://cehd.umn.edu/ceed/projects/ecri/dissem.html
  The Early Childhood Research Institute on Measuring Growth and Development (ECRI-MGD) was launched iin October, 1996. Its mission is to produce a comprehensive system for measuring the skills and needs of individual children with disabilities from birth to eight years of age.
• More on measuring children's progress and outcomes.
  www.fpg.unc.edu/~eco/index.cfm
  Among other things, the Early Childhood Outcomes Center (ECO) is researching issues related to the development and implementation of outcome measures that states can use to demonstrating results for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities and their families. If you're concerned with how to measure outcomes and demonstrate accountability for these young ones, you'll want to visit ECO and see their work.

Teaching Reading

There's an extraordinary amount of information available on effective practice for teaching reading. If this is a topic of interest to you, we've organized the research and resources into a NICHCY Connections to...Literacy Resources, which will connect you to research-based information on: