In 2019, the Louisiana Board of Regents issued its Master Plan for Higher Education establishing an audacious goal for the state--60% of working adults holding a degree or credential of value by the year 2030. At that time, Regents committed itself to "lead the way in developing and implementing key initiatives to eliminate performance gaps,…

Economic downturns, like a global pandemic, magnify the need for timely, accurate, and complete data that policymakers need to make data-informed decisions that will help workers, businesses, and their communities recover. Good data helps to better understand what's working and what's not in terms of creating greater access to workforce…

There is a growing call to reconsider current approaches to national and state assessment system policies and practices. State and local education agency leaders, educators, community leaders, and advocates have voiced concerns that current state assessment systems--defined primarily by end-of-year multiple-choice tests--are unable to meet…

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) and its state member leaders play a pivotal role in driving high-speed broadband access to all students to best prepare them for college and careers. Complementing the 2016 "State K-12 Broadband Leadership: Driving Connectivity and Access" (see ED569341), this publication…

This updated Louisiana Comprehensive Literacy Plan contains the following sections: (1) Louisiana's Literacy Pillars; (2) Literacy Data from the Fall 2021 Assessment Reports; (3) Louisiana's Literacy Mission & Goals; (4) Louisiana Believes We Can Achieve Improved Literacy Outcomes; (5) BESE Policies Supporting Literacy; (6) Louisiana State…

This document presents the opening chapter of Quality Counts 2020, Education Week's annual, comparative examination of the nation's public education system based on a wealth of academic, financial, and socioeconomic factors analyzed by the EdWeek Research Center. This January installment--Chance for Success--is the first of three Quality Counts…

This Louisiana Comprehensive Literacy Plan contains the following sections: (1) Louisiana's Literacy Pillars; (2) Literacy Data from the Fall 2020 Assessment Reports; (3) Literacy Mission and Goal; (4) Early Literacy Commission (ELC) Recommendations; (5) Louisiana Believes We Can Achieve Improved Literacy Outcomes; (6) Current Legislation…

Opportunities for youth participation in city and state elections, such as those occurring in Maryland and Illinois, are becoming a part of the policymaker's toolkit to create engaged citizens and lifelong voters. This report reviews new efforts by state and city leaders to encourage youth voting within their boundaries. Key takeaways in this…

As states continue to grapple with the most appropriate ways to hold schools accountable under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), there is a lack of consensus on how alternative settings should fit into accountability systems and whether those systems should be separate from or included in accountability systems for traditional schools. The…

Discussion of alternative education is growing across the country as states and districts look for ways to better serve students whose needs are not met in traditional high school settings. Alternative settings, however, vary greatly in how they operate, whom they aim to enroll, and the methods they use to educate students. The variation of…

This report offers state leaders key areas for action to continue progress in implementing evaluation systems, even as federal policies on teacher evaluation relax state requirements. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) offers its current best thinking for how state agencies can make the smartest use of funds, time and partners to refine…

To date, most of the public narrative and pushback on new teacher evaluation systems has centered around their use for high-stakes personnel decisions such as pay, promotion, and dismissal, but these systems were always intended to promote and support improvements for all teachers--not just the superstars or laggards. Why is teacher development…

Since 2013, states have witnessed significant legislative activity related to secondary- and postsecondary-level career/technical education (CTE). One key goal of much recent policymaking activity has been to improve alignment between high school and postsecondary CTE programs, including by developing state or regional structures to design career…

Over the past few decades, many state departments of education have taken over low-performing schools or districts as a school turnaround strategy. Recently, that strategy has shifted to creating new districts--managed by the state--that include schools and parts of districts that face challenges in performance. The governance structure brings…

Over the past decade, SREB state policy-makers have focused on actions to reduce dropout rates and increase high school graduation rates. Some policy-makers have suggested that raising their state's compulsory attendance age (often called the dropout age) to require students to stay in school until age 17 or 18 is an important step. However,…