Reports
Research and information to support best practice.
Featured Reports
Building Pathways to Teaching through Apprenticeship Case Study: Educators Rising South Dakota
This case study highlights how state and district leaders can align "Grow Your Own" initiatives into cohesive ecosystems by leveraging federal Workforce Pathways for Youth funding to create sustainable teacher apprenticeship structures.
This case study highlights how state and district leaders can align "Grow Your Own" initiatives into cohesive ecosystems by leveraging federal Workforce Pathways for Youth funding to create sustainable teacher apprenticeship structures.
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Community in Education: Bringing Businesses and Schools Together
The Learning First Alliance, a coalition of 12 national education organizations, most recently convened its members and representatives from business entities to work together to find practices that could build better relations between local school officials and businesses and community organizations. This report, featuring FourPoint's Dr. Rudy Ruiz, delves into their findings.
The Learning First Alliance, a coalition of 12 national education organizations, most recently convened its members and representatives from business entities to work together to find practices that could build better relations between local school officials and businesses and community organizations. This report, featuring FourPoint's Dr. Rudy Ruiz, delves into their findings.
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Moving the College Access Needle for the New Majority: Lessons from Leading Communities
What steps can school districts and their community partners take to help more students succeed after graduation? A new NCAN report, authored by FourPoint Partner and Vice President Rudy Ruiz, examines four districts’ efforts to improve their students’ postsecondary outcomes. The report offers practical, replicable, actionable approaches to transforming postsecondary advising in K-12 systems.
What steps can school districts and their community partners take to help more students succeed after graduation? A new NCAN report, authored by FourPoint Partner and Vice President Rudy Ruiz, examines four districts’ efforts to improve their students’ postsecondary outcomes. The report offers practical, replicable, actionable approaches to transforming postsecondary advising in K-12 systems.
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Needs Assessments and Strategic Planning
A New Day for Learning: Champaign Unit 4 School District Strategic Plan (2020-2025)
FourPoint worked with the Champaign Unit 4 District as technical assistance partners to create a Strategic Plan for 2020-2025. The district will use this plan to identify annual implementation priorities, focus on scaling instructional approaches that produce the best outcomes for their students, and annually report on progress towards achieving district goals.
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Afterschool and Summer Programs in Reading, Pennsylvania: A Supply and Demand Analysis
FourPoint partnered with the Berks County Community Foundation in 2018 to conduct a report on high-quality out-of-school time programs in Reading, PA. The findings and recommendations offer a view of Reading’s current OST landscape and opportunities to make high-quality afterschool and summer programs available to more children and teens.
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Fairfax County Equitable School Readiness Strategic Plan: Birth to Eight
FourPoint supported Fairfax's Strategic Planning Team in creating their Equitable School Readiness Strategic Plan. The report outlines five focus areas for implementation: partnerships with families, high-quality experiences for all children, well-prepared professional educators, using data to make decisions, and building public awareness.
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Minority Students in Special and Gifted Education
Special education and gifted and talented programs were designed for children whose educational needs are not well met in regular classrooms. These programs have had disproportionate representation of racial and ethnic minority students. This book, co-edited by Chris Cross, considers possible contributors to this disparity.
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Preparing for Strategic Planning: District Needs Assessment
In 2020, FourPoint conducted a Needs Assessment for Champaign Unit 4 School District. We focused on five domains; school management, instructional delivery, special populations, family & community engagement, and finance. This report summarizes the findings our assessment.
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Santa Clara County Early Learning Facilities Study
In 2017-2018, FourPoint Education Partners was pleased to be one of the multiple project partners with the Santa Clara County Office of Education in developing recommendations for Early Childhood Facilities across Santa Clara County. The role of the FourPoint team was to collect stakeholder input, review relevant resources, research and data, and synthesize findings. We are proud to share this resulting report with you.
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Transforming Waukegan Public Schools: On a Path to Sustainable Improvement
After several strategic shifts, Waukegan Public Schools is starting to improve outcomes for its historically underserved students - most of its student body. As districts across the country aim for the same, this case study explains how WPS' improvements have been won and what battles lie ahead as the district continues its quest to deliver equity and results to its students and community.
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Organizational Development
Governance of City Afterschool Systems: A Review and Analysis
FourPoint served on the technical assistance team for The Wallace Foundation’s Afterschool System Building Initiative (ASB) from 2012 to 2017. Through this role and work in other communities, we began to see several distinct types
of governance structures - ways of formally engaging stakeholders in systems - emerging. This paper details what we learned in our exploration of city afterschool system governance.
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Governance Structures for Afterschool Systems: Three Models
FourPoint has been paying close attention to how city afterschool systems across the country are governing their work. With support from The Wallace Foundation, we’ve developed a summary and infographic to share what we’ve learned.
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Infographic – Governance Structures for Afterschool Systems: Three Models
This infographic, developed with support from The Wallace Foundation, lays out key features of three emerging models of city afterschool system governance.
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Using Expanded Learning to Support Reforms
This FourPoint (previously Cross & Joftus) paper was originally published as part of a volume of commissioned papers titled “Enhancing School Reform Through Expanded Learning” that was distributed at the National Press Club on January 12, 2009. It provides information and insights into the ways that states, cities, and districts are using their resources to expand learning in support of a wide variety of reform approaches.
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Instructional Leadership Capacity Building
FourPoint Leadership: The Necessary Bridge Between Policy and Educational Equity
In a paper for The George Washington University's Graduate School of Education, Scott Joftus lays out FourPoint's model of leadership, which emphasizes a clear theory of action, effective use of the principal supervisor role, capacity building through coaching, and performance management.
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The Second Lever of Success for Superintendents
FourPoint's Scott Joftus penned an article for the Southeast Education Network (SEEN) in 2017 detailing key areas for superintendents to target in order to improve the quality of schools and increase student achievement. This article focuses primarily on the challenges and opportunities superintendents face when leveraging districts' principal supervisors.
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Student-Centered Support Systems
2022 Naviance Student Survey Report: Student Perspectives on College, Career, and Life Readiness
FourPoint's college and career readiness team provided survey development, data analysis, and support with insights for the 2022 Naviance Student Survey Report. Download the report to see what middle and high school students had to say about their postsecondary plans, and how schools and districts can better support their needs. Insights include increased interest in career exploration and a desire for better understanding of postsecondary paths.
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2021 Naviance Student Survey Report: Student Perspectives on College, Career, and Life Readiness
FourPoint recently partnered with Naviance by PowerSchool to design, implement, and synthesize a survey of over 15,000 middle and high school students. Across grades and backgrounds, the results were clear: Students want more support and more opportunities to build career readiness, including through work-based learning.
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Community in Education: Bringing Businesses and Schools Together
The Learning First Alliance, a coalition of 12 national education organizations, most recently convened its members and representatives from business entities to work together to find practices that could build better relations between local school officials and businesses and community organizations. This report, featuring FourPoint's Dr. Rudy Ruiz, delves into their findings.
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Diagnostic CTE Review: Providence Public Schools
FourPoint and UPD Consulting conducted a diagnostic review of the Career and Technical Education programs of the Providence Public School District (PPSD). Findings and recommendations in this report are intended to support PPSD in improving outcomes for students, including access to high-skill, high-wage, and high-demand career fields.
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Dollars and Sense
In this report, funded by the C.S. Mott Foundation, FourPoint (formerly Cross & Joftus) explores the many ways that programs are using resources to support more comprehensive approaches to learning. The report focuses on funding that connects in-school and out-of-school learning and creating community networks to tap and connect a wider set of resources.
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Financing Expanded Learning Time in Schools
FourPoint (formerly Cross & Joftus) along with the National Center for Time and Learning, collected and analyzed finance data from five different models of expanded learning to understand and unpack the realities, both financial and technical, of implementing a longer school day.
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Funding Summer Learning Programs: A Scan of Public Funding in Maryland
In partnership with the National Summer Learning Association, FourPoint (formerly Cross & Joftus) developed and tested a methodology for collecting and analyzing data that provides information to state and local policymakers on public investments in summer programs. The methodology was tested in four local jurisdictions in Maryland and can be replicated in other locales.
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Investments in Summer Learning Programs: A Scan of Resources for Summer Programming in California, 2008
In partnership with the National Summer Learning Association, FourPoint (formerly Cross & Joftus) collected and analyzed data in five cities in California to inform the work of the state legislature and Summer and Intersession Enrichment Task Force as they considered additional investments in summer programs.
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Investments in Summer Learning Programs: A Scan of Resources for Summer Programming in Indianapolis and Marion County, 2008
FourPoint (formerly Cross & Joftus) provided support to a local funder collaborative in Marion County (Indianapolis metro area) to better understand the magnitude and nature of investments in summer learning.
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Moving the College Access Needle for the New Majority: Lessons from Leading Communities
What steps can school districts and their community partners take to help more students succeed after graduation? A new NCAN report, authored by FourPoint Partner and Vice President Rudy Ruiz, examines four districts’ efforts to improve their students’ postsecondary outcomes. The report offers practical, replicable, actionable approaches to transforming postsecondary advising in K-12 systems.
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Policy, Partnership and Progress: Expanding Learning Opportunities in Connecticut
With support from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and Ford Foundation, FourPoint took a close look at how federal, state, and local policies, political climates, and philanthropic investments have shaped the state of expanded learning opportunities in Connecticut. The resulting case study is instructive for philanthropic and education leaders alike.
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Promoting a Comprehensive Approach to Educational Opportunity: A Pilot Inventory of Education-Related Federal Programs for Children and Youth
In this report, FourPoint (formerly Cross & Joftus) presents a rationale for adopting a more comprehensive, whole-child approach to education reform; describes how an inventory of federal programs can support this effort; and presents findings from a pilot inventory of education-related federal programs for children and youth.
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Promoting Sustainability for Promise Neighborhood Grantees
Across the country, Promise Neighborhood grantees are leveraging significant federal and local investments to improve outcomes for students and families. In fall 2019, FourPoint Education Partners undertook this needs assessment to understand the financial landscape of Promise Neighborhood grantees and how they are approaching sustainability—strategies, challenges, and supports to help them continue their work beyond the federal grant term.
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United Way Worldwide Education Research Overview
FourPoint (formerly Cross & Joftus) created a framework and provided research and technical support for this Research Overview for United Way Worldwide. The report demonstrates the research base for investments from early childhood through college and workforce preparation to guide investments and field-building for local United Ways across the county.
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