Increasing student achievement by improving the quality and effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school leaders is one of the key goals of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Title II, Part A of ESEA (Title II-A) provides over $2 billion per year in funding to states and districts to support effective instruction through…

In most schools, the end user of education products and programs--the teacher--has little or no control over what gets purchased; education products and programs are bought for teachers by school and district leaders. This top-down purchasing system creates three hurdles to effective education procurement: (1) half-baked implementation of new…

Only three percent of Brazilians are estimated to speak English despite the status of this language as a mandatory subject in grades 10 to 12 of basic education and preferred foreign language in grades 5 to 9. This paper will analyse possible reasons for this fact. The widespread concept in the Brazilian society that speaking English is beneficial…

Increasing student achievement by improving the quality and effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school leaders is one of the key goals of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Title II, Part A of ESEA (Title II-A) provides over $2 billion per year in funding to states and districts to support effective instruction through…

This report on "Responsive School Systems" constitutes the second of three thematic comparative reports bringing together findings from the OECD's School Resources Review. Evolving educational objectives, changing student needs and demographic developments require school systems to be highly responsive to new patterns of demand and adapt…

Nearly half of the 907 public school districts tracked by Education Week opened school fully remote this year. This includes more than three-quarters of the nation's largest districts, which serve high proportions of students with the greatest learning and social-emotional needs stemming from the pandemic. Now, many district leaders are working…

Roughly seven years have passed since the majority of states adopted college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards. Some states adopted the Common Core State Standards while others adopted their own versions of CCR standards. Because teachers are the primary implementers of CCR standards, we wanted to understand the challenges they face in using…

This is the fourth in a series of reports that are the culmination of two years of research by the Campaign for Educational Equity, a policy and research center at Teachers College, Columbia University, and significant input from the Safeguarding Sound Basic Education Task Force, a statewide group made up of representatives from New York's leading…

"Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. With more than 125 charts and 145 tables included in the publication and much more data available on the educational database, "Education at a Glance 2017" provides key information on the output of…

In this essay we examine how educators work within a component of a class size reduction reform designed to strengthen the connections between families' home and school lives. We describe the accomplishments and struggles experienced by educators enacting this "lighted schoolhouse" based on our research in nine schools over three years.…

Class-size reduction (CSR) mandates presuppose that resources provided to reduce class size will have a larger impact on student outcomes than resources that districts can spend as they see fit. I estimate the impact of Florida's statewide CSR policy by comparing the deviations from prior achievement trends in districts that were required to…

England's performance in international tests of student achievement continues to be disappointing. Further improvement is essential not only for students' themselves but also for economic growth. This briefing considers the impact of Academies, school spending and teacher quality. Research evidence suggests that it is right to protect school…

Nationwide, states face declining or plateauing investments in education. These financial constraints, coupled with increased standards for student achievement through the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), create a heightened need for strategic resource use. However, districts are not currently using resources…

Rural school consolidation has significantly changed the landscape of rural education in China. Based on a study carried out in nine provinces, this article analyzes the effect of this policy initiative. It has led to increased school dropout rates in rural schools.

This second edition policy brief revisits the long and storied literature on whether money matters in providing a quality education. It includes research released since the original brief in 2012 and covers a handful of additional topics. Increasingly, political rhetoric adheres to the unfounded certainty that money does not make a difference in…