Although education is in many ways a responsibility of states and localities, the U.S. federal government also has an important role to play. National laws, court rulings, and policy guidance help ensure that English Learner (EL) and immigrant-background students have equitable access to a meaningful education. It is then up to states and school…

Publicly reporting timely, actionable, and comprehensible education data is one of the most powerful ways states can promote transparency, strengthen accountability, and ensure that everyone with a stake in education--parents, educators, policymakers, and members of the public and press--has access to the information they need to make good…

Every summer, an increasingly common event occurs across the country--parents open a letter explaining that their child's school is failing to meet benchmarks set under the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and that, as a result, they have a right to send the child to another public school, if space is available. In the summer of 2009,…

The Study of School Turnaround examines the improvement process in a purposive sample of 35 case study schools receiving federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) over a three-year period (2010-11 to 2012-13 school years). Using site visit, teacher survey, and fiscal data, the case studies describe the school contexts, the principals' leadership…

Although the overall number of youth involved in the juvenile justice system has been decreasing, there are still more than 60,000 young people in juvenile justice residential facilities in the United States on any given day. With the support of grants administered by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ),…

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) both include a commitment to keep the public informed about educational progress that students are making, and both emphasize the importance of involving parents in the education of their children. An underlying assumption of NCLB and IDEA is that in order…

This "Handbook" offers a broad definition of family and community engagement, seen through the lens of scholars and practitioners with a wide-ranging set of perspectives on why and how families, communities, and schools collaborate with one another. Taken together, the chapters in this "Handbook" sketch out the components of a…

These hearing transcripts present testimony concerning the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education (ESA) Act, which since 1965 has provided the bulk of federal aid to elementary and secondary schools and related programs. Much of the testimony was from New York education officials, school administrators, community leaders,…