Charter school authorizers (authorizers) that are committed to fostering high-quality charter school options for all students have an imperative to understand the nature of school distress and failure. Authorizers and other stakeholders need to be able to identify and understand schools experiencing distress, long before a state accountability…

Purpose: This article offers (a) an overview of the attention federal policy has invested in educational leadership with a primary focus on the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), (b) a summary of the critical role school leaders play in achieving the goals set forth within federal educational policy, and (c) examples of how states are using the…

Over the past two decades, the percentage of American students with disabilities educated in general classrooms with their nondisabled peers has risen by approximately 50%. This gradual but steady policy shift has been driven by two distinct narratives of organisational change. The social justice narrative espouses principles of equality and…

Section 104(a) of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010 made the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) available to Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) and schools in high poverty areas. Under the CEP, families are not required to submit applications for free or reduced-price meals, and schools must provide free lunch and breakfast to…

"Districts' Use of Weighted Student Funding Systems to Increase School Autonomy and Equity: Findings from a National Study. Volume 1," is intended to provide both practitioners and policymakers with detailed information about the design, implementation, and outcomes of weighted student funding (WSF) systems in the United States. Findings…

Principals are the leverage point for education reforms and the primary drivers of school improvement. A critical part of maintaining a corps of effective principals is rewarding and retaining the best school leaders. Unfortunately, few systems systematically identify principals that make important contributions to student learning or celebrate…

Despite the recent push to design and adopt educator evaluation systems, many states and local educational agencies (LEAs) have focused primarily on teacher evaluations and lack the appropriate attention to design and implementation of school leader evaluations and aligned professional development. And, since principals are responsible for…

This final report presents findings from a multi-year evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers, a federally funded program that provides technical assistance to states in connection with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. With the redesign of the Center…

The Office of Indian Education (OIE) in the U.S. Department of Education funds competitive grants for Native American school leadership preparation programs in order to improve the education of disadvantaged students identified under the 2001 "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) reauthorization of "Elementary and Secondary Education…

A history of the achievement levels for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) could be documented in different ways. A chronological history might be the obvious approach, but in the author's view, that could miss the most salient aspects of setting student performance standards on an assessment like NAEP. Further, new initiatives…

This chapter is organized as follows. The first section examines the evolving state and federal role in education and the implications of an expanded federal role on the structure of the educational system. It pays particular attention to how the debate on the causes and solutions to school reform has shifted and the impact this has had on school…

This monograph presents results of a 6-month study of the federal government and the Clinton Administration's proposal for a decade-long process of re-inventing the federal government's operations. Each of four major principles are presented in a chapter organized around specific steps towards its implementation. These principles are: cutting red…

This publication reports on progress 1 year into the Clinton Administration's "Reinventing Government" initiative, a long-term effort at significantly revamping the federal government's operations. A preliminary chapter notes the culture change involved in the reinvention process. Individual chapters then report progress for each of the…

The most obvious and difficult problem facing educators of migrant children is that of frequent interruptions in the child's education caused by his migration. Various solutions have been put forth over the past three decades; these have included providing mobile schools and staff, residential schools, uniform record transfers, interstate credit…