Independent school district central office administrators were challenged with defining, detailing and disseminating systems of support and structure during the unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic. To maintain focus on instruction during a pandemic that caused needed attention on quarantined environments and remote learning structures,…

School districts are traditionally subject to a variety of state regulations on educational inputs. Absent regulations, policymakers fear that districts will make inappropriate decisions. However, it is also possible that regulations hinder schools from optimizing student learning. This article tests the salience of these hypotheses by estimating…

Background: What is the role of state legislatures in improving public education? Is it to provide funding and standards for student outcomes and then step aside? Or should legislatures and state education agencies also govern how districts educate students? In practice, states hold school districts accountable for academic achievement while also…

Pushback against the perceived federal overreach into educational reform has led to renewed calls for a return to local control of schools. In contrast to this general trend, there has continued to be a strong national role for English learner (EL) accountability policies related to EL identification, monitoring and reclassification processes. In…

Across the country, urban school districts are moving beyond industrial-era systems by creating "innovation" or "partnership" schools that have the freedom to reinvent the way they educate students. The Progressive Policy Institute released a how-to guide for legislators, district leaders, and advocates who want to create more…

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal government allocates 7% of Title I funds, about $1 billion per year, for school improvement. States have substantial autonomy in allocating these funds, including which schools are identified for federal school improvement, what improvement strategies are used, and whether external intermediaries…

The effects of competition from public charter schools on district school budget decisions are theoretically ambiguous. Competitive pressures could increase desired budget autonomy since they give district school leaders more flexibility; however, competition could decrease desired budget autonomy if district school leaders are generally…

Childrens' learning has been massively disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the need for more opportunities for differentiated, high-quality learning, stronger relationships with the adults in their school, and streamlined access to social-emotional support -- especially for the country's lowest-income students, Black and Latinx students,…

Traditional public schools in the United States must comply with a variety of regulations on educational inputs like teacher certification, maximum class sizes, and restrictions on staff contracts. Absent regulations, policymakers fear that troubled districts would make inappropriate decisions that would harm students. However, it is also possible…

The word innovation can mean a number of things to different stakeholders and policymakers. This discourse analysis examines how the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has used an initiative called "Districts of Innovation" to attempt to support and empower districts throughout the state of Texas. The question becomes whether those attempts…

Is the Common Core really "dead"? Though no longer called the Common Core in our three study states, the "new" college-and-career readiness standards still guide much of education policy in Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky. In our new feature article in "Educational Researcher," lead author Dr. Laura Desimone, along with…

California policymakers have established the expectation that all public school students should have access to a broad course of study, in classes where instruction is consistent with the state's content standards. Further, the state holds schools and school districts accountable for their ability to ensure that all students achieve at a specified…

Across the United States, a movement to create a new kind of public school--"autonomous district schools"--is giving districts the freedoms charter schools receive. Like charter schools, autonomous district schools are freed from innovation-inhibiting state and district policies, allowing talented educators to make academic and…

The portfolio strategy is a change strategy for public education in a district or metropolitan area. It is founded on the idea of re-missioning government agencies from rigid bureaucratic entities that mostly manage compliance requirements and interest group politics to a new role: overseeing performance and a diverse range of school choices…

On December 10, 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) was signed by President Barack Obama and became the United States' current national education law (United States Department of Education [U.S. DOE], n.d.). The ESSA was a long overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). Unlike previous…