Resources for school improvement efforts, such as school improvement plan (SIP) templates, can espouse governmental entities' perspectives on and requirements and recommendations for the school improvement planning process. These resources, in turn, can influence how educators enact school improvement efforts generally and the school improvement…

Given that standards-based education has been commonplace since the early 1980's, most practicing education professionals cannot remember a time where standards did not exist. Standards have historically served as a mechanism for accountability and academic achievement. In physical education, while not required in initial educational reforms, the…

Statewide school accountability systems have been required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) for more than 20 years. However, many states implemented school accountability systems well before federal requirements, demonstrating a recognition of their role in supporting school improvement. As a new administration takes office…

The provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) include (1) the requirement for states to periodically review resource allocation in local education agencies (LEAs) serving a significant number of schools identified for comprehensive support and improvement (CSI),…

The Every Student Succeeds Act's evidence requirements mandate the use of research in the selection of school improvement interventions, with the aim of ensuring that schools and districts invest their efforts and funding more wisely. This study of eight states presents three different approaches to the evidence requirements: using lists of…

LearnPlatform by Instructure conducted this quasi-experimental study, evaluating the impact of the Breathe For Change Mindfulness, Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), and Yoga Teacher Training on K-12 student attendance and chronic absenteeism during the 2023-24 school year. The study included 172 educators and 955 students from a mid-size public…

Title IX of the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) provides the Department of Education with funds to award grants to enable states and districts to deliver services to families living in unstable housing situations. The Project UP-START Program (Project UP-START) is a District program designed to identify students living in unstable housing and to…

Edmentum offers a personalized learning platform called Exact Path. This quasi-experimental study, designed to meet ESSA Tier 2 evidence and What Works Clearinghouse standards with reservations, aimed to assess the efficacy of Exact Path in a district from the Midwestern United States. The goal was to provide specific recommendations to educators…

The current implementation fidelity narrative in education is one written in federal legislation (e.g., ESSA, 2015; IDEA, 2004) and peer-reviewed journals (e.g., Chu et al., 2020; Noell et al., 2014). While teachers represent a significant force for the implementation of evidence-based practices in schools, their experiences and wisdom are often…

Recent federal legislation mandates that college and career readiness be integrated into the curriculum for all high school students (National Center for Education Achievement, n.d.). To support economic growth, educated individuals must be available within an industry and local area (Harvey et al., 2019). Therefore, "[t]he essence of college…

Achievement and opportunity gaps have continued to persist despite the best efforts of educators. "The Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA, 2016) legislation was written to meet the needs of all historically underserved students. To meet those needs, Local Education Agencies (LEA) have turned to a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS)…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) highlighted technology-based personalised learning (PL) as a means of providing equitable learning experiences for all students. Many states have put forward guidance in their ESSA plans to inform professional development (PD) that empowers educators with skills that maximize PL for students. This brief…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reverses a trend toward centralization of education policy and instead provides greater authority to the states. This study explores states' interpretation and early implementation of ESSA's equity-related provisions. Using a qualitative case study approach, we find wide variation in the design and…

The recent Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around their lowest performing schools, but it breaks somewhat from prior policies by granting states significant autonomy over how they identify and turn around these schools. This mixed-methods study, which draws on administrative, qualitative, and survey data,…

This qualitative case study examines how board members make sense of federal accountability policies and how their sensemaking shapes their use of assessment data as a policy instrument. Deviating from previous work on practitioner sensemaking, the participants' interpretations of assessments did not align with their ensuing use of the data.…