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Volume 17, Number 1: Winter, 2012 Contents

• Engaging and Re-engaging Families When a Student is Not Doing Well
  
• Update: National Initiative: New Directions for Learning Supports
  
• Developing a Comprehensive System of Learning Supports: The Experience of Gainesville City Schools, GA
  
• Center News

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Volume 17, Number 2: Spring, 2012 Contents


School Improvement Requires Developing, Supporting, and Retaining Quality Teachers

• I. Needed: A New Approach for Addressing Barriers to Learning and Teaching
  
• II. Personalized Continuous Learning for Schools to Enhance Equity of Opportunity
  
• III. Beyond Inservice: Reducing Teacher Dropout and Enhancing Staff Mental Health
  

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Volume 17, Number 3: Summer, 2012 Contents


Common Core State Standards: What about Student and Learning Supports?

The state standards movement for education clearly is speeding along. Almost all states already have adopted common core standards for English and math. And while still under discussion, facets of the model core teaching standards generated by the Council of Chief State School Officers already are reflected in various policy actions. There are, of course, ongoing debates about the common core standards. At this juncture, we set these aside to stress what’s missing in the state standards movement. Stated directly, the movement ignores the need to provide a unified and comprehensive system of student and learning supports to enable all students to benefit from the upgraded curriculum. This perpetuates a long-standing documented failure of school improvement planning and many blueprints for education reform (e.g., see Center for Mental Health in Schools, 2012). The implications seem clear: Given the accelerating policy attention to core standards, it is imperative to move forward quickly to develop a set of standards for student and learning supports and integrate them into the state standards movement for education. This issue of ADDRESSING BARRIERS TO LEARNING is devoted to clarifying the need and to offering a draft set of such standards to encourage discussion and action.
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Volume 17, Number 4: Fall, 2012 Contents


• Featured Article -- Whole Person, Whole School Renewed interest in the total/whole student and equity for all students reflects widespread recognition of major gaps related to what schools do to facilitate learning and development and address interfering factors. Now it is time to appreciate the reality that concern for the whole student requires developing whole schools. This article stresses what can be done immediately to advance the three primary components essential to school improvement and whole student development: (1) curriculum and teaching, (2) a learning supports system to address factors that interfere with learning and teaching, and (3) school governance/management.

• About NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT AND LEARNING SUPPORTS: Moving Forward Greater discussion is needed about developing a unified and comprehensive system of learning supports to more effectively address barriers to learning and teaching and re engage disconnected students (e.g., a system that significantly increases equity of opportunity, reduces absenteeism, and counters student and teacher dropouts). To stimulate discussion, we (1) highlight the pressing need for common core standards for learning supports and (2) encourage SEAs, LEAs, and schools to analyze their websites to assess how well they communicate to stakeholders about the efforts to address barriers to learning and teaching and re engage disconnected students.
  

• Center News – Latest resources available at no cost from the Center.

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