In 2022, New Mexico joined the list of states that adopted a statewide promise program, offering tuition and fee assistance for eligible students to pursue higher education. The New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship (NMOS) differs from existing programs by including part-time and summer enrollment, academic and workforce degrees, and older adult…

Drawing on an actor-network articulation of evaluation theory, this article examines the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's transition from a punitive teacher evaluation model to a promising new development and support model, which focuses on teacher growth and environmental adjustments. Supported by dozens of interviews and observations…

Teacher shortages increase yearly while interest in the teaching profession seems to be at an all-time low. Policymakers are again seeing value in high school "grow your own" (GYO) teacher programs as a source of future teacher talent. Against the backdrop of career development models for teaching, we developed an instrument based on…

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) loosened the federal policy grip over states' teacher accountability systems. We present information, collected via surveys sent to state department of education personnel, about all states' teacher evaluation systems post-ESSA, while also highlighting differences before and after ESSA. We found that states…

A response to Stosich et al.'s (2018) article reviewing ways in which states have taken up performance assessments, this commentary seeks to extend the focus and use of performance assessments to preservice teacher education. As such, the authors describe statewide initiatives in New Hampshire that are working to integrate performance assessments…

This study examined the implementation of high-stakes adoption of edTPA® in one state in the year prior to consequential use of edTPA scores for teacher licensure. Using a mixed methods design, we investigated concerns of coordinators who were responsible for edTPA implementation in their institutions. We utilized the Concerns Based Adoption Model…

This study examined a sample of plans that states submitted to the U.S. Education Department in 2015, pursuant to requirements in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title I, Part A. Plans were aimed at redressing inequities in access to qualified teachers as this problem has emerged in states and districts across the country. A…

In response to the rising demand for market-responsive education reform across the U.S., since 1998 more than twenty states have created Individual Learning or Graduation Plan (ILP/IGP) state policies. Using extensive policy document analyses and stakeholder interview data from four early-adopting ILP/IGP states, the goal of this four-state case…

This study presents an empirically-based statewide system that links information about pre-kindergarten programs with children's school readiness scores to certify pre-kindergarten classrooms as promoting school readiness. Over 8,000 children from 1,255 pre-kindergarten classrooms were followed longitudinally for one year. Pre-kindergarten quality…