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Tool Kit

Resources

Communications Toolkit

LFA's Communications Toolkit aims to help education leaders communicate more effectively about public education. Based on focus groups and polling LFA commissioned in 2004 and 2005, the toolkit offers original research findings on public opinion, a guide to promoting public schools, and language for op-eds and speeches. It includes:

 

Civic Education and the 2009 Inauguration

In celebration of the 2009 presidential inauguration, the Learning First Alliance created a statement on the important role of public schools in a democracy. Feel free to use this statement in school assemblies, school board meetings, publications or for any other Inauguration observance.

The Learning First Alliance also worked with a number of partners to identify resources to help schools celebrate the inauguration. These resources are available here.

Staffing High-Need Schools

In 2005, Learning First Alliance organizations came together to produce a common framework for ensuring all students access to highly effective teachers and leaders in their schools: A Shared Responsibility: Staffing All High-Poverty, Low-Performing Schools with Effective Teachers and Administrators.

District-Wide Improvement: Success Stories

In 2003, the Alliance examined five high-poverty school districts with a strong track record of improving achievement. The resulting report, Beyond Islands of Excellence: What Districts Can Do to Improve Instruction and Achievement in All Schools, identifies a set of practical steps that schools and districts can take to move beyond a few excellent schools to success across entire systems. You can download the full report here, or you can review these related materials:

 

Public School Success Stories

The Learning First Alliance has just released a print collection of 25 stories about public schools and school districts that are using innovative strategies to give every student every chance at success in the 21st century.

Reading and Mathematics

The Learning First Alliance's publications on mathematics and science remain perennial bestsellers. Over 30,000 have been downloaded from the internet in the past four years, and we have sold thousands more in hard-copy. These publications include:

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H1N1 FLU RESOURCES

Click here for resources to help the public education community prepare for the unlikely case of a flu pandemic.

Emerging Vision

On this website, educators, parents and policymakers from coast to coast are sharing what's already working in public schools--and sparking a national conversation about how to make it work for children in every school. Join the conversation! Learn more.

Visionaries

Click here to browse dozens of Public School Insights interviews with extraordinary education advocates, including: 

  • Best-Selling Author Dan Pink
  • Teacher Educator Nancy Bacharach
  • Technology and Design Legend David Kelley
  • Aldine Superintendent Wanda Bamberg
  • American Productivity and Quality Center Chairman Jack Grayson
  • Washingon Principal Sharon Collins
  • New Stories

    Featured Story

    Davenport

    A Village Route to Early Childhood Education

    In the 1990s, we at Davenport Community Schools noticed a trend: Children were coming to kindergarten unprepared to learn. A troublingly low number of our district’s children (more than half of whom receive free or reduced price lunch) had preschool experience. Recognizing the importance of early childhood education in ensuring students are ready to succeed in school and life, we developed the Children’s Village, which includes formal preschool classes and all-day, year-round programming serving children from six weeks to five years old.  Today, when a Children’s Village student arrives for the first day of kindergarten, the teacher can say, “This child is ready to learn.”

    With early childhood education, students learn more, teachers accomplish more and taxpayers get more for their education tax dollar. But it takes all our students, teachers, staff, administrators, parents and partners to make the Children’s Villages a success. Indeed, it really does take a village to ensure quality early childhood education. Read more

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