Building stronger relationships between families and schools is increasingly identified as a way to address many vexing issues--teacher shortages, chronic absenteeism, lingering academic and social-emotional effects of COVID-19, and perceived divisions between parents and educators. Because policies and practices around family engagement vary…

In 2007, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples became law, extending inherent human rights for the first time to the approximately half a billion Indigenous people around the planet. The declaration sets standards for respecting Indigenous knowledge systems and heritage rights, preserving identity and languages, and…

With this position paper, we advance the case for reformation of U.S. special education law and praxis. These have undergone mostly incremental changes over the five decades since their inception despite a substantial body of evidence amassed over this period, which points to a major gap between extant policy and praxis, and contemporary cultural…

In this policy road map, Jobs for the Future (JFF) offers common-sense, field-tested policy solutions that state and federal lawmakers can enact today to begin reengineering education and workforce systems toward the vision and core principles of No Dead Ends. These policy recommendations are organized under four key priority areas: (1) Empower…

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened tensions around standardized testing policy and prompted the United States Department of Education to allow states to request waivers from federal standardized testing requirements. Paul Bruno and Dan Goldhaber describe the waivers that states requested and received, what they suggest about how state test results…

The purported "Golden Age" of American higher education, typically associated with the two decades following World War II, was marked by increasingly generous federal support of the nation's postsecondary institutions and their students. Unlike analyses that attribute this largesse to factors like geopolitics (i.e., a response to the…

Recognizing the essential value of the arts, the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) included the arts as an indicator of school quality and student success in the state's Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, which the U.S. Department of Education approved in August 2017. The indicator currently has no weight in Illinois's accountability…

When either privileged or under-resourced families navigate gray areas in the law, including federal laws related to students with disabilities such as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, inequities are revealed. Research and emerging trends have raised increasing concerns about unfairness and abuses of disability policies, particularly with…

In the United States, political polarization has increased markedly since 2000, with consequences for local governments and state-level policymaking. Redistricting, and the role of social media as the dominant source of information for many in the U.S. has contributed to state and national legislatures that reflect more extreme political views. A…

Education tax credits provide federal financial aid to a wide expanse of American taxpayers; however, little research or analysis has been done on these costly programs. There has been little evidence of its link to college enrollment growth. This descriptive paper outlines the establishment of education tax credits, their original intent, and the…

Federal funds are one resource that state leaders can use to establish and/or supplement programming designed to diversify the teacher workforce. Though several federal funding streams can be used for this purpose, state and district leaders have a great opportunity to leverage COVID-relief funds to expand their diversity efforts. The primary…

The latest policy pronouncements on immigration reaffirm the need for comprehensive immigration reform in this country. It is time for Congress to decide how to balance securing our borders with the need for a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people already in the U.S. Known as "Dreamers," there is an entire generation…

The coronavirus pandemic is acutely affecting the delivery of K-12 education. As of March 19, 2020, 44 states had closed 104,000 schools, affecting nearly 48 million students, turning millions of families into accidental homeschoolers. This homeschooling trial by fire for families across the United States has hastened the need for district, state,…

The Every Student Succeeds Act gives states greater flexibility in designing educational policy, but questions remain about whether and how states will use this opportunity to design truly innovative new policies to support higher levels of student learning. The authors describe how educational leaders in four states--California, Iowa, New…

As Washington prepares to welcome a new Congress in January 2023, incoming policymakers who want to improve education for every student and give parents more control over where and how their children are educated have many policy options at their disposal. New Members of Congress who want to protect taxpayers and rein in college costs also have…