Exceptional Leadership Skills Resources

Resources to Support and Implement Early College High School Programs

Early College High Schools: Model Policy Components

This policy brief defines early college high schools (ECHS), clarifies how they differ from traditional dual enrollment programs, provides recent research on the positive impact of ECHS, and sets forth the model state policy components. 

Revisiting Professional Learning Communities to Increase College Readiness The Importance of Pedagogical Content Knowledge

This article, published by American Educational Research Association (AERA), argues that professional development generally, and PLCs in particular, would benefit from the insights gleaned from the extensive literature on teacher expertise that focuses on how well teachers understand the content they teach and how well they understand how students learn that content.

Removing Legal Barriers around Work-Based Learning

This report, from Advance CTE, explores an issue that is often a stumbling block for K-12 work-based learning–ensuring these experiences are safe and legal for students. This report features New Jersey, Kentucky and California and their approaches to dismantling work-based learning’s legal barriers, including training teachers to understand the state and federal legal, health and safety requirements for work-based learning and mitigating work-based learning liability concerns for schools and employers. 

Measuring Work-Based Learning for Continuous Improvement

While many work-based learning programs are designed and operated at the local level, several states have begun building a data collection and evaluation strategy to ensure program quality, identify and scale successful programs, and share promising practices. This issue highlights examples from West Virginia, Tennessee and Massachusetts that demonstrate either a systems-level or student-level approach to measuring work-based learning activities.