The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as reauthorized in 2015, includes a provision to help protect students from sexual abuse and misconduct. ESEA Section 8546 requires states to adopt laws or policies that prohibit K-12 employers from assisting or aiding and abetting school employees, contractors, or agents in obtaining a…

In 2015, Congress added a provision in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to help protect students from sexual abuse and misconduct in schools. ESEA Section 85461 requires states to have in place laws or policies that prohibit schools, local school districts, or state education agencies (SEAs) from…

How might policymakers and educators utilize the work already being done as states redesign their accountability systems? The 2015 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), brought much needed attention to the performance of traditionally underserved subgroups of students. Supported by greater flexibility under ESEA…

This paper provides federal policymakers and advocates with comprehensive, big-picture ideas for transforming federal policy to support the transition to competency-based learning. It is meant to start a dialogue on these issues, posing important questions to explore as policymakers contemplate a new vision for federal education policy through the…

This report looks specifically at the information and data needs of policymakers related to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the types of research that could provide this information. The ideas in this report were informed by a series of meetings and discussions about a possible research agenda for the Common Core, sponsored by the…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) represent an historic shift in K-12 curricular policy. Yet,few have explicitly traced the lineage of the CCSS and linked them to the decades-old standards-based reform movement. This essay situates the CCSS within the larger historical context of standards-based reform. It concludes with a discussion of…

Based on an extensive analysis of state waiver plans, this report shows that recent progress in holding schools accountable for how many students they graduate from high school--the ultimate goal of K-12 education--may be slowed in some states based on waivers recently granted under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently…

The purpose of this study was to inform the upcoming and overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) by exploring whether rural school districts face disadvantages as they attempt to follow the law's provisions and, if so, if the law's rural-specific section ameliorates these disadvantages. The research drew upon…

Rates of student homelessness have increased dramatically throughout the United States in recent years, yet there has been a dearth of scholarly analysis devoted to key organizations' engagement of the issue. Given that the federal McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act has taken on a central, but underexamined role in shaping this engagement,…

This document records testimony from a hearing held to examine the implementation of the promise to restore state and local control over K-12 education through the Every Student Succeeds Act. The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act puts states and school districts back in charge of education and includes more than 50 pages of provisions to…

On February 9, 2012, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan granted 10 states waivers of key accountability requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. One year later, applications for this ESEA flexibility, also known as NCLB waivers, had been approved for an additional 24…

How can we better support young people as they develop the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school, work, and life? That is the question facing in-school educators, afterschool providers, families, policymakers, and the general public. This third brief in our series, "Beyond the Bell: Research to Action in the Afterschool and…

This publication uses draft equity plans developed by three Reform Support Network pilot States to demonstrate several approaches to the development of State equity plans in response to the Secretary's Excellent Educators for All initiative. It summarizes how the State education agencies addressed each component of the equity plan and their…

Nearly every high-priority item in national, federal, state, and local discussions about education--and policy proposals across the political spectrum--requires high-quality longitudinal data to inform its design, implementation, and evaluation. This factsheet shares Data Quality Campaign's (DQC's) analysis of what "Data for Action 2011:…

Policy makers at the federal level have embraced an educator effectiveness agenda, which in turn has driven many states across the country to rapidly develop and implement new and more complex teacher evaluation systems. It is increasingly clear that the success of these nascent teacher evaluation systems partly depends on the will, skill, and…