The Education Quality Assurance team is responsible for supporting schools in need of comprehensive and equity supports and improvement. This document provides a collection of resources to support continuous improvement efforts in reducing achievement gaps and improving overall student performance.
Resource Categories
- Systems & Cross-Curricular Resources
- Understanding & Selecting Evidence-Based Practices
- Equity Audit & Framework Tools
- Content-Related Resources '
- Additional Resources to Support English Learners
Systems & Cross-Curricular Resources
Equity Lens Tool : By utilizing an equity lens tool, the AOE aims to provide a common vocabulary and protocol for evaluating policies, programs, practices and decisions for equity; and to produce policies, programs, practices and decisions that result in equitable outcomes.
AOE Equity Web Page : AOE definitions and resources on Equity related issues
MTSS Field Guide: AOE field guide and framework for implementing a multi-tiered system of supports
Educational Support Teams : AOE webpage for resources and information pertaining to institutionalizing Educational Support Teams in school systems.
Equity Protocol for PLC : Data analysis protocol with a focus on equity, generously shared by Hartford School District
Curriculum Support Guide : collection of insight, resources, and lessons from educational systems experiences in selecting and implementing high-quality instructional materials.
K-12 Instructional Audit Roadmap: Hanover Research’s K–12 Instructional Audit Roadmap provides you with an easy-to-use systematic framework to improve student and teacher outcomes by:
- Understanding current instructional practices
- Identifying opportunities to make progress on strategic goals
- Uncovering risks that could delay academic recovery
- Laying the groundwork for effective program evaluations
Water of Systems Change Resources : Resources, based on a framework that can serve as an actionable model for organizations creating systems change, particularly those who are working to advance equity.
Effective Teacher Professional Development : This paper, from the Learning Policy Institute, reviews 35 methodologically rigorous studies that have demonstrated a positive link between teacher professional development, teaching practices, and student outcomes.
Implementing Effective Professional Learning Communities : This issue of SEDL Insights explores ways that education leaders can guide their staff in the implementation of effective PLCs
Inquiry Cycles Protocol for PLCs: This infographic illustrates how inquiry cycles can improve teacher collaboration and student outcomes by focusing on instructional practice.
What Works Clearinghouse : Search the WWC and resource page to find the information you need to make evidence-based decisions in your classrooms and schools.
WestEd Doing What Works : Watch interviews with researchers and educators, explore classroom videos and sample materials, and access tools to help educators put evidence-based practice into action.
Innovation Configuration Maps: Innovation Configuration maps specify behaviors and expectations related to implementing a curriculum, intervention, or evidence-based practice. They can be used for self-assessment, reflection, and for spreading practices with fidelity/integrity across a system.
National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations: The goals of the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI) are to assist states and programs in their implementation of sustainable systems for the implementation of the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children (Pyramid Model) within early intervention and early education programs with a focus on promoting the social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes of young children
Family Engagement : The Agency of Education recognizes the importance of partnerships between schools and families to improve outcomes and ensure equity for all students. This page provides parents/families, community members and school districts resources to advance parent/family engagement.
Universal Design for Learning : The UDL Guidelines are a tool used in the implementation of Universal Design for Learning, a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn.
How to Support Students of Color in the Classroom: research and implementation strategies that can help teachers leverage culturally relevant pedagogy to support student success.
Strategies to Support Black Students, Teachers, and Communities in Schools: Education leaders can partner with Black communities by creating school environments that center Black voices, recognize community and student assets, and nurture those strengths to achieve success. The strategies in this article serve as starting points for creating and sustaining these environments in schools all year long.
Evidence-supported interventions associated with Black students’ educational outcomes Findings from a systematic review of research (from REL Midwest): This research review examined the evidence on interventions that aim to improve Black students’ educational outcomes.
Educating Hispanic Students: Effective Instructional Practices: CREDE researchers have synthesized the research on strategies that have been significant in advancing the achievement of Hispanic students. This brief presents these identified teaching practices, which can be applied in any classroom and are beneficial for all students, as well.
AOE MTSS Brief Supporting Students of Color: This MTSS Educational Equity Brief offers research, best practices and resources that support students of color.
AOE MTSS Brief: Supporting our Vulnerable Students Living in Poverty: This MTSS Educational Equity Brief offers support for our vulnerable students who are living in poverty.
Ensuring Equitable Opportunities: Providing a High-Quality Education for Students with Disabilities : Guidelines from the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) to support states, districts, and schools ensure that all educators, teachers, leaders, and school staff, are prepared to provide students with disabilities high quality instruction and appropriate individualized services and supports.
Implementing Educational Support Teams: AOE guidelines on establishing Education Support Teams within the context of a Multi-tiered System of Supports.
Research-based Strategies for Addressing Disproportionality in Special Education (WesEd): suggestions from research-based frameworks developed by respected and vetted researchers in the field whose work has paved the way for implementation of culturally responsive and sustaining education.
AOE Supports for Special Educators : AOE webpage dedicated to resources and supports to help educators and administrators in Vermont understand and navigate legal expectations, access best practices and tips, and become more informed on current topics and issues in special education.
Social and Emotional Learning Resources and Tools to Support Teachers: Research shows that SEL and mental health well-being is the foundation of academic success and is even more critical during times of crisis. The embedded resources offer guidelines, strategies, and information for educators to manage stress, practice self-care, and build SEL skills with their students.
Children’s Equity Project: The Children's Equity Project (CEP) is led in partnership with scholars from universities across the United States and works at the intersection of research, practice, and policy and focuses on a range of equity issues across an array of child serving systems.
School Climate & Restorative Practices : The Learning Policy Institute summarizes a restorative approach to equitable education.
Understanding & Selecting Evidence-Based Practices
Using Evidence to Strengthen Educational Investments : Non-regulatory guidance from the US Department of Education to strengthen the use of investment funds for evidence-based practices.
Evidence-based Improvement: A Guide for States to Strengthen Their Frameworks and Supports Aligned to the Evidence Requirements of ESSA : This guide recognizes school and district improvement as a continuous, systemic, and cyclical process, and emphasizes the use of evidence in decision-making throughout continuous improvement. In other words, the guide is not aimed at isolated decisions; rather, it is meant to support evidence-based decision-making (especially selection of interventions) that is nested within a larger improvement process.
Leveraging ESSA’s Evidence Provisions : One of the collection of resources from Results for America (RFA) to help states, districts, and schools better understand how the evidence provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) can be a game changer that helps them solve problems and improve student outcomes.
Aligning Evidence-based Clearinghouses with ESSAs tiers of Evidence : Overview of the foci, studies, and criteria from a variety of clearinghouses that provide evidence-based programs and practices.
Education Laboratories Evidence and Research Briefs:
- Effect Size Basics
- The Basics of Reviewing a Research Study
- Reviewing Research Studies: Examples & Applications
Evidence-based Practices for Continuous Improvement : The purpose of this document is to support educators and leaders in Supervisory Unions/Districts/Schools in their data-based decision-making and continuous improvement planning related to reviewing, selecting, and application of evidence-based practices.
National Center on Intensive Intervention : NCII has developed six tools charts to assist educators and families in becoming informed consumers who can select academic and behavioral assessment tools and interventions that meet standards for technical rigor and address their specific needs. This section provides an overview of available tools charts and considerations for using them to identify assessments and interventions.
Accessing and Assessing Research & Evidence (REL at WestEd): This document provides a select list of resources related to accessing and assessing evidence and research, in alignment with the requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
Applicability of Evidence-based Interventions (REL at WestEd): This document identifies seven contextual factors, each with related questions. Considering these factors helps decision-makers assess how a particular intervention might meet their needs, regardless of where the evidence of its effectiveness was generated and helps inform further investigation into the feasibility of its implementation in your context.
Research Briefs & Design Principles (EdResearch for Recovery): The EdResearch for Action Research Overview Series summarizes the evidence base on key topics and includes practical, operational guidance for each priority decision point or question. The EdResearch for Action Design Principles Series focuses on individual programs and practices that have been proven to have positive effects on student outcomes. It helps practitioners adapt and implement evidence-based programs.
Research Briefs and Evidence Ratings (Center on Innovations in Learning): This document provides a variety of research, evidence, and effect size rating for various educational practices.
IES Practice Guides Collection: Institute of Education Sciences practice guides collection and intervention reports.
Selecting Evidence-based Practices : One in a series of action guides developed by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) designed to support and inform education leaders who are implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This edition focuses on the use of evidence-based practices, which are instructional practices, strategies, programs, and interventions that have been shown through rigorous evaluation to be effective at improving outcomes.
IRIS Center : The IRIS Center is a national center dedicated to improving education outcomes for all children, especially those with disabilities birth through age twenty-one, through the use of effective evidence-based practices and interventions.
Equity Audit & Framework Tools
Equity Audit Tool : MAEC, Inc. developed the three Equity Audit tools found in this document to offer districts, schools, and teachers a way to begin conducting an equity audit. These tools were designed to: 1. Help educators develop a more concrete understanding of what it means to practice equity, and 2. Reflect on whether current school policies, procedures and practices are equitable.
Hanover Equity Audit : Equity audits can help educators understand the inequities that exist in their district and schools and inform development of the policies and practices needed to address them. In this document, Hanover provides an overview of the academic literature surrounding equity audits and describes the types of research studies and projects districts can commission as part of this process.
Making Schools Equitable Audit: Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest is partnering with Ohio school districts to develop, test, and refine the Making Equitable Schools Audit (MESA) approach. This data-informed approach for high schools focuses on improving student sense of belonging by reducing the use of exclusionary discipline policies and practices that inequitably affect students of color and students receiving special education services
National Equity Project: The National Equity Project support leaders across systems to build culture, conditions, and competencies for excellence and equity in school districts, organizations, foundations, and communities. Their webpage contains useful frameworks, tools, and videos to support educational leaders and their organizations.
Content-Related Resources
Spotlight on Equity Resources (all content areas): The Spotlights on Equity Resources below provide a list of considerations and resources for the purpose of supporting equity and access across content areas, emphasizing high quality and culturally sustaining learning opportunities for all students.
Literacy Professional Learning Modules: Vermont educators can register for and start taking the first two modules of the new literacy professional learning series, Building a Strong Foundation for Lifelong Literacy Success, today! The whole learning series contains six asynchronous modules launched every 6-8 weeks throughout the 2023-2024 school year.
Vermont Literacy Playbook: An Implementation Guide for System Leaders to Improve Student Literacy Learning
Alaska's Reading Playbook: A Practical Guide for Teaching Reading: This playbook combines decades of nationwide research with examples and resources.
IES Practice Guides Collection (literacy & Mathematics): Institute of Education Sciences practice guides collection and intervention reports. You’ll find an introduction to phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, and links to valuable resources where you can continue to deepen your knowledge.
What Works Clearinghouse : Search the WWC and resource page to find the information you need to make evidence-based decisions in your classrooms and schools.
Evidence for ESSA : up-to-date and reliable information on programs that meet ESSA evidence standards.
High Leverage and Evidence-based Practices (Reading Rockets): High-leverage practices (HLPs) and evidence-based practices (EBPs) when used together can become powerful tools for improving outcomes for students with disabilities and those who struggle. This brief shows the promise of these practices in advancing educator preparation and practice.
AOE Evidence-based Practices for Literacy : As per the Education Quality Standards (EQS), Vermont uses the Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy as laid out by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for grades K-12 and the Vermont Early Learning Standards (VELS) for prekindergarten through grade 3.
AOE Evidence-based Practices for Math: In 2010, Vermont adopted the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics: Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. The CCSS for Mathematics provide clear, consistent expectations for students, which define what students should understand and be able to do. The AOE has developed sample proficiency-based graduation requirements (PBGRs) for Mathematics based on the CCSS.
Literacy Essentials : Theory of action and accompanying Practice Guides describing specific research supported practices to improve literacy instruction and student learning PreK-12.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Resources
- Classroom Practices That Support Equity-Based Mathematics Teaching
- Access and Equity in Mathematics Education
Additional Resources to Support English Learners
Effective EL Program Models : Research-based effective English Learner program models.
Evidence-based Instructional Strategies for Elementary English Learner Students : Research provides insight into specific instructional strategies that should be used in every classroom to support elementary English learner students in developing both English language skills and academic content. This infographic is a quick reference to these evidence-based practices that can be used daily by elementary classroom teachers to support effective instruction for their English learner students.
Ceeder Center Evidence-based Strategies to Support English Learners : This paper features an innovation configuration (IC) matrix that can guide teacher preparation professionals in evidence-based practices for English Learners.
EdResearch for Recovery Recommendations to Support English Learners (post-COVID): Recognizing longstanding educational inequities, what research-backed practices can district administrators, school leaders, and classroom teachers use to support English Learner (EL) students’ academic success and linguistic development in an instructional context transformed by COVID-19.
US Department of Education English Learner Toolkit: Chapter 2 : Tools and resources for providing English Learners with a Language Assistance Program.
Newcomer Toolkit: Chapter 4 : The Newcomer Toolkit is designed to help U.S. educators; elementary and secondary teachers, principals, and other school staff who work directly with immigrant students—including asylees and refugees—and their families.