Past Issues

Volume: 6

  • Volume 6, Issue 1: July 22, 2010

     

    Few issues raise greater educational concern than the need to improve K-12 outcomes in mathematics and science in the United States. The issue is seen as a matter of national security and competitiveness in a twenty-first century global economy where a primary American advantage has been our superior science and technology. This position is in jeopardy due to the rise of nations such as China, India, and Brazil which are investing heavily in education. Increasing the participation and achievement of girls in math and science is a critical factor in improving America’s educational performance.
     
    Reflecting the focus of ACI’s Center for Success in High-Need Schools on improving the education of girls in math and science, this issue of the journal features a Lake Forest College-Waukegan Schools partnership exploring math, science, and gender in the middle school classroom. The issue also contains articles reporting on impacts of differentiated instruction on gender performance, gender equity in the classroom, and the relationship between poverty and low performing schools.
     

Volume: 5

  • Volume 5, Issue 1: December 12, 2009

    In this issue, Success in High-Need Schools features innovations in improving preparation of teachers for high-need schools with a focus on matters such as clinical practice, teacher and principal leadership, parent involvement, and support groups to help increase teacher retention. The articles in this issue describe how evaluation and assessment are becoming powerful tools in developing evidence-based best practices and how the expansion of college-school partnerships are helping to improve teacher preparation and retention and student learning outcomes. These advances owe much to the collaboration and sharing that ACI's Center for Success in High-Need Schools fosters through grant-funded projects, workshops, conferences, and monthly meetings of ACI members and school partners.

  • Volume 5, Issue 1: December 11, 2009

     

Volume: 4

  • Volume 4, Issue 1: January 1, 2008

    This issue of Success in High-Need Schools explores P-20 school-college-business collaboration, the essential process through which the Center fulfills its mission to recruit, prepare, and retain excellent teachers for Illinois' high-need schools. This issue of ACI's Center for Success in High-Need Schools online journal features a Center white paper on business-education partnerships -- their history, purposes, and best practices. The issue follows with case studies of P-20 collaboration in urban, rural, and suburban settings, the perspectives and goals of the partners, and what these collaborations have been able to achieve that the partners would be unable to accomplish alone. Guest columns provide perspectives of participants, including what is critical for partnerships to work in achieving their goals. The essential focus, of course, is on collaboration to improve teaching in high-need schools and student success in closing the achievement gap.

  • Volume 4, Issue 2: May 22, 2008

    Few challenges are greater in achieving educational success in high-need schools than the preparation and professional development of teachers who understand and relate effectively to the diverse identities and cultures of their students. Teachers who emphasize with the cultural differences of their students, are sensitive to their students' diverse learning styles, and are skilled in a variety of culturally appropriate pedagogies are critical. Partnerships among teacher educators, their arts and sciences faculty colleagues, and teachers in the schools play important roles in designing pre-service curricula integrating culturally responsive content and pedagogies to equip teacher candidates for success. In short it is about both teacher and student in closing the achievement gap.

  • Volume 4, Issue 3: December 5, 2008

    This issue of Success in High-Need Schools is devoted to special education. The articles provide case studies of ACI member institutions that have recently developed multi-categorical certification programs with support from a multi-year 2004 ACI grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education. The FIPSE grant enabled the Center to create the Illinois Special Education Collaborative (ISPED), a network of ACI member special educators and school partners working together to address the shortage of special education teachers, especially in Illinois high-need schools. Guest columns by state superintendent Chris Koch and special education teacher Marlo Sails add important commentary.

Volume: 3

  • Volume 3, Issue 1: February 15, 2007

    Improving teaching through research-based practice, commonly referred to as "action research," has applications both in the college preparation of pre-service teachers and in teacher professional development in the K-12 classroom. This issue of the ACI Center Journal for Success in High-Need Schools focuses on action research undertaken at Associated Colleges of Illinois member colleges and universities, notably summer 2006 collaborative projects of arts and sciences and teacher education faculty members. The articles in this issue of the Journal demonstrate the broad applications of action research and its promise both in preparing highly qualified teachers for high-need schools and, consequently, in helping to close the achievement gap regarding the performance of students in these schools.

Volume: 2

  • Volume 2, Issue 2: September 8, 2006

    Volume 2, Issue 2, of the Journal for Success explores successful practices in addressing the critical need to recruit a larger, more diverse corps of highly qualified teachers for high-need schools and then to improve the dismal teacher retention rate. In many high-need schools, more than 50 percent of first-year teachers leave teaching or transfer to another school after their first year.

  • Volume 2, Issue 1: June 30, 2006

    This second issue of Success in High-Need Schools is devoted to the theme "Alternative and Accelerated Certification." It features articles and commentary on non-traditional Illinois programs that recruit and prepare a diverse corps of highly qualified teachers for high-need schools.

  • Volume 2, Issue 3: December 15, 2006

    Innovation is the focus of this issue of Success in High-Need Schools, (Volume 2, Number 3), the online journal of ACI's Center for Success in High-Need Schools. Feature articles and columns in this issue focus on creative methodologies and the results of Innovation Projects undertaken by ACI member colleges and universities to improve teacher preparation and to help close the achievement gap in schools serving our neediest children. The Center's Innovation Projects are funded by ACI's Teacher Quality Enhancement Partnership grant from the US Department of Education.

Volume: 1

  • Volume 1, Issue 1: December 1, 2005

    This inaugural issue of Success in High-Need Schools reports findings from the Center's first year: stories of collaboration among ACI's 24 member colleges and universities, their K-12 school partners, and community colleges and businesses seeking to recruit, prepare and retain a diverse corps of excellent teachers for Illinois' high-need schools.