Since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down public school buildings across the United States in early 2020, research on academic indicators has documented disproportionate--and potentially long-lasting--impacts on Latino students. This report examines several strategies and practices that have tremendous promise for accelerating Latino students'…

The overall aim of the Effective Implementation Cohort (EIC) investment is to increase district capacity to implement a high-quality middle years math curriculum as part of a Coherent Instructional System (CIS) to accelerate learning for students who are experiencing poverty, Black, Latino/a, and/or English Learner (EL)-Designated ("priority…

States use their accountability systems to identify low-performing schools, which can receive added support and are expected to improve. Alternative schools serve students whose needs are not met in a regular school. They often serve at-risk students who are struggling academically or behaviorally. Given this unique population, the Government…

On April 3, 2017, sixteen states (Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont) and the District of Columbia submitted their Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state accountability plans to either the US Department of…

This report provides an annual update on performance metrics for the Maricopa County Community Colleges District (MCCCD), including progress toward MCCCD Governing Board Outcomes. Three key areas are analyzed to determine student and organizational performance as follows: (1) Leading Indicators of Student Success; (2) Completion Outcomes; and (3)…

This report provides profiles of exemplars of school accountability "report cards" from nine states and the District of Columbia. The exemplars were selected by Education Commission of the States (ECS) researchers and a group of 14 parents selected by ECS staff. This report contains: (1) a main "report card" page with school…

This memorandum provides a summary of the indicators of college- and career-readiness used in nine states: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah. This scan was conducted at the request of the California Comprehensive Center, and focuses on data from states' Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers state leaders the opportunity to refocus their education systems on improving opportunity and outcomes for young people who have been underserved for far too long. The law includes a number of important requirements to focus on equity in school accountability, but it also leaves many key decisions up to…

Value-added models (VAMs) are used to measure changes in student achievement on large-scaled standardized test scores from year to year. When aggregated, VAM estimates are used to measure teacher effectiveness and hold teachers accountable for the value they purportedly add to or detract from student learning and achievement. In this study,…

This report summarizes the state of competition in American K-12 education. It pays particular attention to the prevalence and market penetration of charter schools, private school vouchers, and tax-credit scholarships as market reforms. The effect of added institutional competition from charters, vouchers, and tax-credit scholarships on the…

Participation in today's knowledge-based economy requires some postsecondary education. Further, acquiring the foundational skills and critical thinking skills necessary for both civic engagement and career enhancement require some level of postsecondary attainment for most adults. Concurrently, the population growth, labor force participation,…

As schools across Arizona worked to meet NCLB's AYP requirement in 2010-2011, they were also labeled and sanctioned by AZ Learns. This phenomenological study focused on six effective high school principals in two Arizona school districts to ascertain how accountability policies impacted the principals' job responsibilities, autonomy, and ability…

This article examines the turnaround and closure rates of charter and district schools in 10 states to determine if one school sector has done comparatively better than the other at addressing chronically low-performing schools. Low-performing charter and district schools were identified in 2003-04 based on their reading and math proficiency rates…

In 2008, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) launched a differentiated accountability pilot to allow states to distinguish between those schools identified for improvement in need of substantial help and those closer to meeting achievement goals. In July 2008 and January 2009, the Department approved waivers to give nine states the…

Sierra Vista Elementary School is a Title I school located in south central Phoenix that serves 418 K-8 students, 90 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and live in homes where the primary language is not English. One-third of the student population is made up of English-language learners. Hispanic students make up 78 percent…