Our Research

In 2010, EdVestors issued a four-year retrospective report on the winners of the School on the Move Prize from 2006 to 2009. Researched and written by the Rennie Center, this report identified five principles of school improvement shared by winning schools.

This 2010 report focuses on providing students with a broader set of skills that will enable them to thrive in an increasingly diverse, rapidly evolving and globally-connected world, known as 21st century skills.

This 2010 issue brief provides survey results about district leaders' perceptions of 21st century skills. Survey findings provide a picture of school and district priorities for student learning statewide, including the skills and knowledge school administrators believe are most important for their students to acquire.

This 2010 policy perspective reviews the necessity of school discipline policies, laws governing the policies, and national research on the effects of disciplinary removal. The brief describes overall trends in the disciplinary removal (suspensions and expulsions) of Massachusetts public school students and findings from a more in-depth analysis of discipline data from the 2007-2008 school year.

This 2009 report highlights gaps in knowledge and areas for improvement in practice-based teacher preparation, and lays the groundwork necessary for a deeper look at issues associated with drawing exceptional candidates into the teaching profession; filling vacant positions; measuring teacher quality; and holding teacher preparation programs accountable.

This 2009 policy brief contributes to the policy dialogue about how to increase the level of collaboration among state departments and agencies that serve Massachusetts children, youth, and families by putting forth examples of structures and strategies being used by other states' children's cabinets to carry out their work.

This 2009 policy perspective examines the arguments for and against raising the compulsory age of school attendance to 18; it concludes that there is no credible empirical evidence to support this policy alone as an effective strategy to combat the dropout crisis. The report argues that prior to considering a raise in the compulsory age of attendance, the Commonwealth should focus its energy and resources on developing policies and programs that research has shown to be successful in helping at-risk students stay in school and persist to earning a diploma.

The 2009 policy brief proposes a plan designed to significantly reduce, and ultimately, eliminate the number of students who require college remediation in mathematics. Rather than the traditional progression of math courses, this brief proposes three new math courses at the middle and high school levels - including a new fourth year math course providng an alternative for students pursuing non-math related majors.

This 2009 report analyzes practices and policies within these schools and districts to help inform the work of educators and policymakers in addressing dropout recovery strategies. This research is based on interviews with district leaders and principals from 11 high schools in 9 Massachusetts districts that have reduced their student dropout rates over the past four years.