A leadership academy is a formal professional learning opportunity for current school leaders, focused on augmenting knowledge and skills, increasing specialization, and refreshing leadership practices. States interested in supporting leadership academies through federal or other funding sources can look to current models of leadership academies…

A four-day school week (4dsw) is becoming more common, especially in areas across the western United States. States with large rural areas are spearheading this change. For example, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and South Dakota have more than 500 districts using a 4dsw. The transition to the 4dsw and the debate over…

Boosting literacy among school-age children remains a national priority. Nearly one third of students in the United States have not developed the foundational reading skills needed to succeed academically, with students living in poverty, students with disabilities, and English learners especially at risk. Starting in 2010, Congress invested more…

The State-Tribal Collaboration Act (STCA) reflects the commitment of the New Mexico Public Education Department to work with tribal leaders on a government-to-government basis and provide guidance for the implementation of Indian Education Act. The STCA signifies a milestone achievement that the State and the 22 sovereign nations, tribes, and…

The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) has been studying the four-day school week since 2015. Since then, the phenomenon of the four-day school week has spread into non-rural areas and interest appears to be growing. Given these apparent changes, the author wanted to know more about recent trends in the initiative. As districts continue…

In March 2019, The New Mexico Public Education Department (NM PED) convened thirteen statewide community engagements to gather public input to reimagine the state assessment system. Following these community input meetings, the NM PED convened the New Mexico Task Force for Student Success (Task Force), which was comprised of key education…

The State-Tribal Collaboration Act (STCA) incorporates the intergovernmental relationship through several interdependent components and provides a basis in which the New Mexico Public Education Department (NMPED) and New Mexico's tribes, nations, and pueblos work together to improve collaboration and communicate on educational issues of mutual…

The four-day school week (4dsw) is growing in popularity, especially in rural areas across the western United States. RAND Corporation researchers addressed knowledge gaps about the 4dsw by conducting a large-scale study of the implementation and outcomes of the 4dsw that involved the collection of original data in numerous districts across Idaho,…

The New Mexico Public Education Department's (NMPED) mission is to ensure all students in New Mexico receive the education they deserve and that students are prepared for college, careers, and lifelong learning. To do this, the department is focusing on supports, sustained learning and outreach to districts, charter schools, tribal education…

This policy brief outlines the Common Core implementation plans for 15 states, including the professional development and resources/tools--such as instructional materials, toolkits, frameworks, crosswalks, and curriculum guides--that each state is providing. The authors suggest that supplemental resources like McREL's Common Core…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

Research and professional leadership standards identify specific ways in which principals directly influence school organization and community relationships and exert less direct, but critically important, influence on teaching quality and instructional effectiveness. Principals' roles are central to supporting and supervising teachers'…

Over the past decade, educators and policymakers have used a variety of approaches to designing and implementing teacher compensation programs. These approaches include federal incentive funds, state-level programs, and district initiatives. This article reviews 6 such programs in order to identify themes and draw conclusions relevant to…

This case study explored Advanced Placement open enrollment programs in New Mexico in an attempt to identify mechanisms embedded within the implementation practices which possibly prevent the equitable enrollment of students of color. Advanced Placement (AP) courses have become a gate-keeper in competitive college admissions. Therefore, a study of…

Todos Juntos New Mexico was a collaborative made possible through a multimillion dollar grant awarded by the Fellows Foundation to empower the community, students, and educators in New Mexico to affect positive change in our public educational system, leading to increased student success, not just for Hispanics, but for all students. Of particular…