RAND researchers investigate factors that might be associated with positive student outcomes for schools that improved during the six years of the Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative.

As the number of older adults in the United States increases, there will be a corresponding increase in the need for services to prevent elder abuse and intervene in cases where it has already occurred. However, there are a limited number of evidence-based interventions to support victims of elder abuse. To encourage the rigorous evaluation of one intervention-Elder Abuse Shelters (EASs)-RAND researchers developed three research designs and assessed the preparedness of the well-established Weinberg Center's EAS in New York to undertake them. Researchers found that the Weinberg Center's EAS is well established, and the program model was organizationally and programmatically ready to be evaluated, though data collection practices should be strengthened before implementing the suggested evaluation designs. These evaluation designs could be generalized and implemented at EASs across the country as the number of shelters continues to grow.

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs-which prepare the majority of school principals-have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). Under UPPI, each team developed a clear and ambitious vision for its program. Overall, the changes the teams enacted ensured that the programs were more rigorous, coherent, and authentically connected to the work of on-the-ground school leaders. Throughout the initiative, the teams balanced common objectives and structure with flexibility for their specific context and changing conditions. This report illustrates that it is feasible for universities-in partnership with high-need districts, state agencies, and with the support of mentor programs that have engaged in successful redesign-to improve principal preparation programs to reflect the best available evidence.

In this toolkit, the authors draw from the Libraries for Health pilot program to provide instructions, ideas, and guidance to libraries that are interested in adopting mental health supports. The authors describe the rationale for incorporating mental health supports in libraries, summarize how libraries approached this pilot, and guide librarians through the steps of adding new mental health supports within their library environments.