About The Wing Institute

Our Mission

The Wing Institute at Morningside Academy is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating foundation dedicated to the promotion of evidence-based education policies and practices in K-12 education. As a “catalyst” organization, it is designed to bridge the research-to-practice gap by facilitating communication, cooperation and collaboration among individuals and organizations currently engaged in evidence-based education. Its goal is to analyze and disseminate existing knowledge, help create new knowledge, and facilitate the effective application of that knowledge to real world settings in real time parameters.

The Wing Institute at Morningside Academy was founded in 2004 and named after Ernie Wing, an outstanding educator and child advocate who was an early champion of evidence-based education and quality services for children with special needs.

The Need

The Wing Institute's strategies are designed to address specific needs and opportunities in the U.S. K-12 education system:

The field of education is experiencing an information explosion. There is a rapidly growing database of research, data, analyses, models, and policies in virtually all aspects of K-12 education.

This information is extremely complex and nuanced. The K-12 education system is vast in terms of stakeholders, resources, issues, and philosophies. Education programs (classrooms, schools, districts, states, universities, etc.) vary in every way imaginable.

Interpretation and use of this information vary widely. The issues involved in K-12 are extremely complex and most conclusions are driven by special interests, ideologies, and commonly held beliefs rather than scientific evidence.

There is now solid evidence regarding what does and does not work in building a successful education system. There has been a dramatic increase in scientific research over the past few decades that supports evidence-based decision-making.

Effective implementation is an essential, and too often ignored, component of evidence-based interventions. Interventions that have been scientifically validated often fail in the real world due to poor implementation strategies.

The aggregation, analysis and dissemination of this information have been fragmented across the field of education. There have been few efforts to organize this information in a way that makes it easily accessible and useful to stakeholders.

Our Strategies

To address these needs, the Wing Institute is actively engaged in implementing the following strategies:

Information Clearinghouse

The Wing Institute web site houses an online information clearinghouse. It is designed with a state-of-the-art, functional web architecture that analyzes, organizes and synthesizes the enormous, complex, nuanced, and rapidly growing database of research, data, analyses, models, and policies. It is organized around three critical components of an evidence-based system: 1) “education drivers” encompassing the critical components of effective education, 2) a “roadmap” to establish a continuous process for decision making, implementation, and monitoring. (3) a system “dashboard” which provides a snapshot of the latest data on what schools are doing and how well they are performing.

Research

The Wing Institute supports, promotes, reviews, and completes research in education policies and practices. It engages in extensive data-mining, tracking, analyzing, and synthesizing the most current data and research from governmental agencies, private organizations, and research / policy institutes in the context of “real time, real world” issues. It also funds new research through its graduate research funding program.

Publications

The Wing Institute facilitates and disseminates journal articles, policy analyses, research reviews, books, newsletters, position papers, and tools related to application of evidence-based education to assist education decision makers.

Evidence-based Education Knowledge Network

The Wing Institute continued to operate, refine and expand its interactive Knowledge Network to accelerate communication, collaboration, and cooperation across a wide range of individuals, organizations, professional disciplines, and regions in the promotion of evidence-based education. The goal of the Knowledge Network is to accumulate and disseminate existing knowledge, create new knowledge, and facilitate the effective application of that knowledge to real world settings in the area of evidence-based education.

Professional Forums

The Wing Institute participates in professional summits, seminars, and conferences to encourage dialogue, collaboration, and communication among researchers, decision makers, and educators.

Organizational Networking

The Wing Institute maintains working relationships with selected key organizations engaged in the promotion of evidence-based practice.

Our Team

The institute's founders — Jack States, Randy Keyworth, and Ronnie Detrich — have over 130 years of cumulative, hands-on experience in research, design, and implementation of evidence-based education policies and practices in public and nonpublic schools, serving students with challenging educational and behavioral needs.

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Andrew Kieta - Executive Director

Read about Andrew here!

Kent Johnson - Executive Director Emeritus

Read about Kent here!

Samantha Cleaver - Researcher & Writer

Samantha Cleaver earned a PhD in special education from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2018. During her doctoral studies she worked to identify and disseminate evidence-based practices in early literacy through Read Charlotte, a Charlotte, NC organization focused on improving 3^rd grade literacy. Prior to her doctoral work, she taught special education, worked as a school leader, and instructional coach. She is the author of two books and numerous articles on reading and education topics.

Kendra Guinness - Researcher & Writer

Kendra Guinness received her master's degree in behavior analysis from Regis College. She has worked with students with developmental disabilities and their families in home, school, and clinic settings to teach functional skills and decrease challenging behavior. Most recently, her clinical work has focused on teaching language and learning readiness skills with young learners diagnosed with autism. In addition, Kendra is a doctoral student in behavior analysis at Simmons University. The focus of her doctoral research is the application of evidence-based instructional strategies in higher education settings.

Jan Donley - Researcher & Writer

Jan Donley earned an Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Reading, and an M.S. in Developmental Psychology from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. Jan taught multiple courses at the college and graduate school level, and spent 25 years working in the field of educational program evaluation, first as a Title I Evaluation Specialist, and then as a consultant conducting evaluation at both the K-12 and postsecondary levels. Since 2015 Jan has specialized in synthesizing research on education and school improvement topics, and developing audience-friendly and concise research briefs and reports for educational practitioners and leaders. She is the author of the school improvement resource Effective Practices: Research Briefs and Evidence Ratings, and has developed more than 200 research briefs and professional development resources addressing various aspects of school improvement, including best practices for working with English Learners and Native American students.

Nicholas Gage - Researcher & Writer

Dr. Nicholas Gage is an Associate Professor of Special Education at the University of Florida. He received his Ph.D. in Special Education from the University of Missouri where he studied special education policy, statistical analysis, single-subject research, Positive Behavior Support (PBS), and Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA). In addition to his doctoral studies, Dr. Gage was an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Post-doctoral Fellow in the Center for Behavioral Education and Research (CBER) at the University of Connecticut working on statistical and methodological advances in special education research field. Specific research interests include identification of policies and practices at the national, state, local and classroom level to support the academic, social, and behavioral needs of students with disabilities through rigorous and diverse research practices and his expertise is in supporting schools, districts, and states in leveraging their data resources to best develop effective and efficient systems of support for students' academic and behavioral needs. Dr. Gage’s expertise includes statistical modeling, research design and methodology, direct observation, single-subject research, and Functional Behavioral Assessment. He is a certified What Works Clearinghouse reviewer for both group and experimental designs. Dr. Gage is PI or co-PI on grants totally over $5 million and served as lead evaluator/statistician on grants totaling over $10 million.

Patty Polster - Researcher & Writer

Patty began her career in special education in 1993. She completed her M.S. in behavior analysis at SIU-Carbondale in 2001 and supported students, staff and parents as a behavior coach and consultant. She completed her Ph.D. in educational administration at St. Louis University in 2011 and has spent the years since training school board members and supporting continuous improvement in Missouri school districts. She has worked with students, parents and staff from early childhood programs through high school and has taught undergraduate and graduate education courses.

Our Scope

EDUCATION (general and special): effective teaching strategies; classroom management strategies and systems; curriculum design (individualized and group); teaching plans (individualized and group); classroom environment (social behavior, discipline, academic performance); school-wide interventions (social behavior, discipline, academic performance)