Publications and Materials Catalog

Description: Governors’ proposals in Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, plus notes from other SREB states.
Publication #: 10S01
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Description: Nationwide, students in the middle grades and high school are failing to develop the reading and writing skills they need in order to meet higher academic standards. This major new SREB report on adolescent literacy discusses the urgency of the problem in depth and presents specific solutions for SREB states based on the recommendations of the SREB Committee to Improve Reading and Writing in Middle and High Schools, chaired by Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia, the SREB Board chair. The report includes a message from SREB President Dave Spence and status reports on recent state actions on the issue.
Publication #: 09E01
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Description: This volume is essential for state, district and school leaders who plan to implement schoolwide literacy programs. It provides concrete, research-based steps not only to raise reading and writing achievement but also to help students learn more in every class by using literacy skills. The guide focuses on five literacy goals: reading 25 books across the curriculum; writing weekly in all classes; using reading and writing strategies; writing research papers; and taking rigorous language arts classes. Click "Download publication" to view the first chapter of this publication. Site Development Guide #12.
Publication #: 03V63
Details: 2003: $10 or $6.50 each for 10 or more
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Description: Setting up operational school leadership teams is essential to the implementation of the HSTW and MMGW school improvement designs. This revision of School Site Teams (93V03) explains how working in teams makes school count for all students. Five essential leadership teams and their composition, structure and duties are described. Additional information is provided on the challenges of teamwork and how to work with ineffective team members. Site Development Guide #2.
Publication #: 05V01
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Author: Sondra Cooney and Beth Lasater
Description: The Research Triangle Institute prepared this report for SREB's Making Middle Grades Work initiative. It compared 28 high- and low-implementation schools and found that students at middle grades schools that more fully implement the MMGW design have higher student achievement than those at schools that do not fully implement the design.
Publication #: 06V03
Details: $2; $1 each for 10 or more
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Author: Gene Bottoms and Marna Young
Description: Too many students leave high school unprepared for employment and postsecondary studies. High-quality career/technical education, combined with a college-preparatory academic core, can help improve student achievement so more students graduate, and they graduate college- and career-ready. This report outlines challenges states face in combining technical and academic studies for improved learning, provides actions states can take to overcome these challenges, and highlights current best practices and policies. The challenges and actions in the report were derived from a forum that convened CTE leaders and other decision-makers from 12 states.
Publication #: 08V07
Details: $5; $2.50 each for 10 or more
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Author: Betty Harbin and Gene Bottoms
Description: Data from national assessments and classroom visits show that many state assessments hold students to minimum standards, resulting in many students not being taught to true grade level. To help schools get significantly more students achieving at the proficient level, SREB has developed this guide to planning and writing standards-based units. Standards-based units focus on rigorous lessons, quality assessment and the personal attention that gives meaning to learning. This guide explains what standards-based units look like, how they work and how they can be developed, using a 10-step process.
Publication #: 08V05
Details: $10
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Author: Gene Bottoms and Allison Timberlake
Description: In an era of rising college and workplace requirements, completing a quality high school education is more important than ever before. But students cannot be expected to excel in rigorous high school studies if they do not receive adequate preparation in the middle grades. Using the results from the 2004 and 2006 Middle Grades Assessments, this report compares school and classroom practices of improving and non-improving middle grades schools and identifies actions schools can take to prepare more students for success in high school and beyond.
Publication #: 08V22
Details: $7.50; $5 each for 10 or more
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Description: Final legislative and budget actions in Arkansas, plus governors’ proposals in Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia.
Publication #: 10S02
Details: 2010, 6 pages
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Description: This is the sixth in a series of eight newsletters highlighting best practices presented at the 2009 HSTW Staff Development Conference in Atlanta. These newsletters contain information about successful actions schools across the nation are taking to join hands-on and heads-on learning in ways that increase student motivation and achievement.
This newsletter contains examples of how school leaders and teachers are taking action to build the reading, writing, speaking and mathematical skills that students need in order to graduate from high school and perform successfully in college and careers.
Publication #: 10V05w
Details: 2010; 10 pages
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Author: Joseph L. Marks
Description: All SREB states have legislation allowing students in public high schools to earn college credits in what are often called “dual enrollment” or “early college” programs. Highlighting data compiled for the first time by the SREB-State Data Exchange, this bulletin presents the percentages of undergraduate credit or contact hours taken by high school students at public colleges, universities and technical institutes in the SREB region — and where program growth is occurring.
Publication #: 010E01
Details: 2 pages; 2010;
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Description: This is the fifth in a series of eight newsletters highlighting best practices presented at the 2009 HSTW Staff Development Conference in Atlanta. These newsletters contain information about successful actions schools across the nation are taking to join hands-on and heads-on learning in ways that increase student motivation and achievement.
This newsletter highlights key strategies schools are using to join academic and technical studies to advance student motivation and achievement.
Publication #: 10V04w
Details: 2010; 17 pages
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Description: This is the fourth in a series of eight newsletters highlighting best practices presented at the 2009 HSTW Staff Development Conference in Atlanta. These newsletters contain information about successful actions schools across the nation are taking to join hands-on and heads-on learning in ways that increase student motivation and achievement.
This newsletter makes the case for transitional planning and helping students transfer smoothly to the next level in order to accelerate student achievement at every stage along the way.
Publication #: 10v03w
Details: 2010; 22 pages
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Description: Virginia and SREB State Notes for 2010
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Description: This is the third in a series of eight newsletters highlighting best practices presented at the 2009 HSTW Staff Development Conference in Atlanta. These newsletters contain information about successful actions schools across the nation are taking to join hands-on and heads-on learning in ways that increase student motivation and achievement.
This newsletter highlights extra-help strategies that schools at all levels are using to assist students in meeting high standards in both academic and career/technical courses.
Publication #: 10V01w
Details: 2010; 16 pages
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Description: This report, produced by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), provides results from a concurrent validity study of the HSTW Assessment. The study found moderate to high correlations between student achievement on the HSTW Assessment and other measures of student achievement, including GPAs, state assessments, and the SAT and ACT.
Details: 2009; 10 pages
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Description: The 24th Annual HSTW Staff Development Conference Announcement Brochure includes information about the conference theme and objectives, proposals to present and conference registration.
Publication #: 09V26
Details: 2009; 36 pages
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Description: Each year, a variety of questions arise from both new and experienced HSTW, TCTW and MMGW sites on how they can give encourage students to put forth their best effort to attain valid and reliable results. This document answers frequently asked questions and shares tips and strategies from SREB staff members, HSTW and MMGW state coordinators, and schools that have been successful in administering the HSTW and Middle Grades Assessments.
Publication #: 09V23w
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Description: This is the first in a series of eight newsletters highlighting best practices presented at the 2009 HSTW Staff Development Conference in Atlanta. These newsletters contain information about successful actions schools across the nation are taking to join hands-on and heads-on learning in ways that increase student motivation and achievement. This first newsletter focuses on multiple strategies high schools, middle grades schools and technology centers can use to hold all students to higher expectations.
Publication #: 09V21w
Details: 20 pages
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Description: Evidence from SREB’s High Schools That Work initiative confirms that more students can be prepared for postsecondary opportunities — college, advanced career training or both — when schools combine rigorous academics, authentic projects and assignments in academic and career/technical classes, and guidance and extra help. This report identifies six clear-cut conditions that schools can create in their career-focused programs of study to increase students’ college and career readiness.
Publication #: 09V20
Details: 60 pages; 2009; $5 each, $2.50 each for 10 or more
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Description: This brief brochure outlines the framework of services and staff development opportunities schools receive as part of the High Schools That Work, Making Middle Grades Work and Technology Centers That Work direct services network.
Publication #: 09V22
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Author: Matthew A. Lenard and Joan M. Lord
Description: This report, part of the Challenge to Lead education goals series, documents high school graduation rate performance in SREB states. It looks at recent rate increases and the narrowing gap between regional and national rates.

Nearly all SREB states have shown high school graduation rate increases — many leading the national rate of growth. The report shows how black and Hispanic students graduate at rates similar to their peers nationwide but trail white students by large margins. Males — especially black males — trail females by wide margins as well. This report also identifies a series of measures that states can use to pinpoint problem areas in the high school pipeline, such as how well students transition from the middle grades to high school, how timely they progress through high school, and whether they actually graduate at the end of their senior year. It shows that despite some positive developments, much more work is needed, especially in the region’s most troubled high schools. See the SREB Gaining Ground Update for additional 2007 federal graduation rate data.

Gaining Ground is a companion to The Next Generation of School Accountability: A Blueprint for Raising High School Achievement and Graduation Rates in SREB States.
Publication #: 09E06
Details: 2009; 22 pages; $5
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Description: Each school day, nearly 3,000 students in the 16-state Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) region drop out of high school without a diploma. Most of these young men and women will enter the work force at the lowest levels. How can state policies take powerful steps to reverse this trend? Based on the work of the SREB Committee to Improve High School Graduation Rates and Achievement, the 10 principles presented in this major SREB report provide a blueprint for high school reform.
Publication #: 09V17
Details: 2009; 33 pages; free
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