Impact: Virgin Islands

Fast Response Projects

Fast Response Projects are short-term projects that respond to regional and national needs and priorities and provide research-based knowledge to inform policy and practice. They use methods such as research syntheses, mining of existing data sets, and descriptive studies. Completed projects are published as Issues & Answers Reports by the Institute of Education Sciences.

	How State Education Agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region Support Data-Driven Decision-Making in Districts and Schools The report examines the initiatives of state education agencies (SEAs) in the Northeast and Islands Region to support data-driven decision-making in districts and schools and describes the service providers hired to support this work. The report identifies four components of data-driven decision-making initiatives and finds that not all initiatives include all four.
	Key Features of State Response to Intervention (RTI) Initiatives in the Northeast and Islands The report analyzes the RTI-related initiatives, policies, regulations, and structures for support in all nine REL-NEI jurisdictions. It finds that the six New England states and New York support RTI as an overall school instructional-improvement approach or an approach to determining special-education eligibility. It also finds that RTI documents in the seven jurisdictions address the eight core features of RTI as defined by the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities.
	Teacher Preparation: Special Education Requirements for General Education Teachers More than 6 million students with disabilities are served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004. Two-thirds of these students are in at least one course taught by general education teachers. Due to the increased inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms, it is essential for general education teachers to have the knowledge and skills needed to teach students with disabilities. This project will produce a report of the current certification requirements for general education teachers to teach students with disabilities in the Northeast and Islands Region. This project is in progress.