This guide is designed for use by school, district, and state education agency staff to improve the effectiveness of efforts to collect and use discipline data, including reporting accurate and timely data to the federal government. It explains the importance of collecting discipline data, identifies key considerations for agencies implementing…

The Institutional Capacity Assessment Tool (ICAT) helps colleges identify strengths and areas for improvement in light of best practices in seven key areas: (1) Leadership and Vision; (2) Data and Technology; (3) Equity; (4) Teaching and Learning; (5) Engagement and Communication; (6) Strategy and Planning; and (7) Policies and Practices. The tool…

This report identifies effective strategies to tackle skills imbalances, based on five country-specific policy notes for France, Italy, Spain, South Africa and the United Kingdom. It provides a comparative assessment of practices and policies in the following areas: the collection and use of information on skill needs to foster a better alignment…

The U.S. Department of Education's (Department) mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. The Department pursues its mission by establishing policies and distributing corresponding funds, focusing national attention on key educational issues,…

Education reform in England is increasingly portrayed as a quest to create "world class" schools through the transfer of features of "high performing" school systems. The demand for evidence to support policy borrowing has been serviced by an influential intermediary network, which uses international data banks to compare…

The digital revolution and automation are accelerating changes in the labour market and in workplace skills, changes that are further affected by fluctuations in international and regional economic cycles and employment opportunity. These factors pose a universal policy challenge for all advanced economies and governments. In the workplace, people…

Year after year, in every state and community in our nation, students from low-income families are less likely than other students to reach advanced levels of academic performance, even when demonstrating the potential to do so. These income-based "excellence gaps" appear in elementary school and continue through high school. It is a…

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) began an ambitious reform of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq's (KRI's) kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) education system beginning in 2007 in an effort to modernize the curriculum, upgrade school facilities, and raise the quality of instruction. In 2010, RAND was asked to conduct a one-year study to assess…

This Education Policy Brief summarizes the research and data analysis completed by the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) on Indiana's student attendance and absenteeism data. The study was initiated by The Indiana Partnerships Center and conducted by CEEP with funding from USA Funds and State Farm. Additional partners in the study…

Economic and fiscal challenges, increased public scrutiny, and calls for accountability from stakeholders necessitate that community colleges work diligently to improve student success outcomes. Programs, services, and initiatives need to be developed and implemented that will increase student retention. Orientation is an important intervention…

States rely on data from both the K-12 and postsecondary sectors to inform policy discussions; chart the progress of students, schools, districts, colleges, and the state; pinpoint best practices and areas of need; allocate scarce resources; and make other important education decisions every day. However, states need to securely link limited, but…

The epicenter for bullying is schools, colleges, and universities, where vast numbers of children, youth, and young adults spend much of their time. Bullying--a form of harassment and violence--needs to be understood from a developmental, social, and educational perspective. The educational settings in which it occurs, and where prevention and…

The authors analysed school performance data to review how well disadvantaged pupils achieve in academy chains. They included chains only if they had at least three academies in 2013, and two sponsored secondary academies for the whole period from September 2010 to July 2013. This means that academies are included in our analysis only when there…

A review of vocational rehabilitation (VR) data from a Midwestern state was conducted to identify predictors of rehabilitation outcomes for African American consumers. The database included 37,404 African Americans who were referred or self-referred over a period of five years. Logistic regression analysis indicated that except for age and…

This article presents findings from an investigation of the overall effectiveness of Michigan's Freedom to Learn (FTL) One-to-One initiative. The major goal of the FTL initiative was to help students to gain 21st century knowledge and skills while increasing their learning and achievement through the integration of over 20,000 laptop computers…