Under emerging policy structures in California, the responsibility for school improvement is increasingly placed upon local school districts, with County Offices of Education (COEs) playing a critical support role. In this system, districts are responsible for school improvement, with counties in charge of ensuring quality across districts and…

Determining whether a state's young people are on track for a life of opportunity is a difficult task for governors and state leaders. States can be both awash in data and unable to easily access and use that data to inform policy. State longitudinal data systems that meaningfully connect workforce, higher education, K-12, and early childhood…

This Special Report -- drawing on insights from a technical working group of experts in arts education, state data systems and state policy -- offers guidance on key arts-education metrics many states could track by using data they already collect.

When school and district administrators are empowered to lead a culture of data use, students do better. As states focus on improving overall school quality and ensuring success for all students, they need a workforce of school and district administrators who are equipped to use data to continuously improve. State leaders are uniquely positioned…

Creating continuously improving education systems could be the antidote to one-off education reforms that come and go with little to show for the effort. What distinguishes continuous improvement from other reform strategies is its focus on the underlying architecture of the system that is producing undesirable outcomes (e.g., low graduation…

This report is the result of a request from two states for technical assistance to support the selection and revision of the state's Kindergarten Entry Assessments (KEA's). Given that this is a national topic of interest, the Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) summarized what we gathered to provide other states with this relevant…

Effective, coordinated state-level systems to support the most vulnerable children and youth have never been more important, as responsibilities increasingly devolve from the federal government to the states. This report is a snapshot of the national landscape of child and youth policy coordinating bodies. It is a source of inspiration to continue…

Every student, no matter where he or she lives, deserves a great teacher. States, educator preparation programs (EPPs), and K-12 leaders must work together to ensure that all teachers are learner ready on day one in the classroom. But too often, these actors do not have access to the necessary information to fully prepare teachers for the unique…

Numerous actors influence how educational policies play out in practice, but this does not mean that policies themselves are without power. Policies are crafted and enacted in part because they serve as signal and symbol: How a policy is formally codified establishes expectations, exerts norming influence, and catalyzes shifts in how issues are…

All students deserve a great education, one that affords every opportunity for them to grow into knowledgeable and successful adults. To date, efforts to improve education have operated on a model of mass production, assuming--wrongly--that what works for some students must work for all. To change that model, students and their parents, teachers,…

Analysis of student-level data to inform policy and promote student success is a core function of executive higher education agencies. Postsecondary data systems have expanded their collection of data elements for use by policymakers, institutional staff, and the general public. State coordinating and governing boards use these data systems for…

Local school board members need to be able to access and use high-quality data to make good decisions. Often this data is collected and stored locally, but information that is publicly reported by the state can provide additional value. Most state public reporting is designed to serve information needs, and are geared toward compliance with state…

This tool and its supporting resources are intended to help education leaders understand and assess equitable access data to support a root-cause analysis and, ultimately, draft a State Plan to Ensure Equitable Access to Excellent Educators. The activities in this tool introduce metrics, address staff capacity for analyzing equitable access data,…

Public reporting makes data about schools and districts--including enrollment, student performance, teacher effectiveness, and more--available to the public. These data never include information that could be used to identify individuals and are critical to meeting the information needs of parents, educators, administrators, policymakers, and…

For most of U.S. history, local communities were the primary arbiters of school quality. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, states began assuming more and more control over school standards and outcomes. The question we seek to answer is whether and the extent to which a particular kind of local voice--the voice of education practitioners--is…