Blog

Across the US and the world, educators, businesses and communities are making daily shifts in operations in response to the rapid spread of COVID-19. To slow the spread and keep us safe, public health experts recommend that people avoid being in groups of 10 or more. Many organizations are opting to transition to a virtual environment or to host convenings...
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Authors: Sarah Beal (US PREP), Sarah Cohen (NCTR), Anne Douglas-Rowald (IC4EP), Francesca Forzani (TeachingWorks), Erika Abelon and Erin Gehant (NYCDOE), Cassandra Herring (BranchED) and Carlos Villagrana (CTAPP) Teachers matter, and so does their preparation. It’s a tall order to provide quality preparation for the roughly 100,000 teachers hired each year in the US, but we have ample reason for optimism....
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Advance Vermont leads a statewide partnership of representatives from business, education, government, nonprofits and philanthropy with a unified goal to increase educational attainment in Vermont for the benefit of residents, communities and the economy. As part of its work, Advance Vermont raises awareness and builds support for a policy agenda by collecting and analyzing data on postsecondary outcomes, and facilitating...
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In partnership with the NoVo Foundation and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, we are thrilled to announce the 2019 teacher and district awardees of the Social and Emotional Learning Innovation Fund! Since 2016, the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Innovation Fund has celebrated educators who practice innovative ways to support and center students’ social, emotional and academic needs, and who strive to...
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Design thinking — which encourages a focus on users and rapid experimentation — can help identify and address a range of problems by focusing on those most affected by the problem. Originally designed for a business context, what might a design thinking process  look like in a school district, where local politics, established policies and well-intentioned bureaucracy can stifle even...
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The Rhode Island Alliance for College and Career Readiness (RIACCR) is pursuing a policy agenda focused on promoting equity of educational opportunity and outcomes for all students in Rhode Island. A key part of the Alliance’s strategy is empowering students to be directly involved in policy design and advocacy. Through the statewide organization Young Voices, more than 10 Rhode Island...
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Education First, in partnership with the NoVo Foundation, is proud to announce the 2019 Regional SEL Convening grants. The goal of the Regional SEL Convenings grants—an outgrowth of the SEL Innovation Fund and national SEL in Action Convenings hosted by the NoVo Foundation—is to help district and school communities create a convening that builds educators’ and other adults’ capacity to meet...
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Last summer, two members of the MaineSpark Coalition traveled to Manchester, NH, to learn about something called “community mini-grants.” They’d heard that the New Hampshire Alliance for College and Career Readiness—recognizing the need for community engagement in a state that prizes local control above all else—had just awarded five small grants to organizations directly serving students. MaineSpark’s leaders were trying...
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Education First, in partnership with the NoVo Foundation, once again seeks applications for teacher-led and district-level projects that foster social and emotional skills in students in grades PK-12.  We will award up to $5,000 to individual teachers or teacher teams and up to $25,000 for district-level grants to implement an innovative project in their classrooms, schools and/or districts in the...
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This case study appears in our publication Partnering on Prep: A Toolkit for Building Strong District-Teacher Preparation Program Partnerships. You can access the full publication here. Effective partnerships often start with a mutual recognition that things need to change. Though Fresno Unified School District (FUSD) and Fresno State University (FSU) had been longtime neighbors, they agreed on a crucial point: it was...
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