Community Partnerships

With everything teachers do in a school day—leading class, grading homework, preparing lesson plans—there’s precious little time for one of the biggest factors contributing to student success: building positive relationships.

The University of Washington College of Education’s Ann M. Ishimaru, whose work focuses on engaging historically marginalized families in the creation of more equitable educational systems, has been awarded the American Educational Research Association’s 2017 Exemplary Contributions to Practice-Engaged Research Award.

University of Washington College of Education faculty and students will present their ongoing research to advance teaching quality, early learning, STEM education and more during the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting April 27 - May 1 in San Antonio. The theme of this year's AERA meeting is "Knowledge to Action: Achieving the Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity."

U.S. News & World Report has ranked the University of Washington College of Education No. 9 among the nation's best education schools in its annual graduate school ratings, released March 14.

UW College of Education ranked No. 3 among education schools at public institutions in the U.S. in the 2018 edition of the U.S. News ratings. This is the fourth consecutive year that UW has been ranked third or higher among public institutions by U.S. News.

Joyce Parker devotes her heart and soul to making sure kids are in school and pointed toward graduation.

“Everyone’s responsible when children are out of school: parents, social workers, church members, teachers, police officers and so on,” said the director of Citizens for a Better Greenville.

That belief set the foundation of the organization’s “Missing in Action” campaign, launched as a concerted community approach to boosting the Mississippi city’s 66 percent graduation rate.

As a newly minted business graduate, Aditi Rajendran envisioned a career helping manage non-profit organizations. After graduation, she landed a job with AmeriCorps and was put in charge of establishing a tutoring program in an urban elementary school. Feeling removed from the inner workings of the school as a tutoring coordinator, the following year she transitioned to a position providing direct reading instruction support to K-3rd grade students.

A six-year program piloted by Auburn School District could serve as a model for developing teacher leaders who build stronger schools across the state, University of Washington College of Education researchers show in a new study.

Kim Boudreau enrolled at the University of Washington planning to major in business administration and human resources management, but it didn’t feel like quite the right fit.

Boudreau realized she was interested in workforce training, so she added a minor in education. But she still wasn’t convinced her studies would take her where she wanted to go. So when the 20-year-old learned about the UW’s new undergraduate degree in Education, Communities and Organizations — or ECO — she didn’t hesitate to switch tracks.

In the fall of 2010, Lakeridge Elementary School in Renton faced a crisis: They were federally designated as one of the persistently lowest-achieving schools in Washington state. Test scores were in the bottom five percent, meaning that only one in five students could comprehend math at their grade level.

A deep partnership between Lakeridge and researchers from the University of Washington College of Education produced a total transformation for Lakeridge, marking a complete 180 from where the school had previously been.

Ann Ishimaru of the University of Washington College of Education has received the University Council for Educational Administration’s 2016 Jack A. Culbertson Award in recognition of her significant contributions to the field of educational leadership.