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…

The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) sets a national vision and plan for learning enabled by technology through building on the work of leading education researchers; district, school, and higher education leaders; classroom teachers; developers; entrepreneurs; and nonprofit organizations. The principles and examples provided in this…

Last year, growing state and district use of education data and increased public attention to the ways in which these data are collected, used, managed, and disclosed sparked much conversation in statehouses around the country about the value of data and how they are protected. Student data (e.g., demographics, transcripts, attendance, test…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, most elementary and secondary schools and local educational agencies (LEAs) across the United States stopped offering in-person instruction in February or March 2020. By the middle of April 2020, 48 states, four U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense Education Activity…

States are responsible for setting the minimum number of students needed to form a student subgroup for federal reporting and accountability purposes. This required student subgroup size is commonly referred to as the state-set "n-size." States should set this number as low as possible to maximize the number of student subgroups created.…

The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provides an opportunity to transform how data are used in education. The 2002 ESEA requirement to disaggregate data and provide them to the public has made it possible to have greater transparency and more accurate measures of academic performance than ever. Congress now has…

This article investigates the utility and availability of college data to evaluate the impact of high school interventions. It reports results of a pilot study that collected information about the college experiences of graduates from four high schools in the northeast United States. Using these results as a lens, the article examines what…