On December 10, 2015 President Obama signed the "Every Student Succeeds Act," Public Law 114-95, which will take effect in the fall of 2016 and which replaces No Child Left Behind (NCLB)--the name for the nation's suite of K-12 education laws in effect from 2001 to 2016. There are many similarities between NCLB and ESSA. For example,…

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a standards-based reform in which 45 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have agreed to participate. The reform seeks to anchor primary and secondary education across these states in one set of demanding, internationally benchmarked standards. Thereby, all students will be prepared for further…

The impact of school locale, size and poverty levels (SES) on student achievement has been of great interest in school research for more than the last five decades. The increasing public demand to hold schools accountable for their effects on student outcomes lends urgency to the task of exploring variables related to student achievement that are…

Research on academic achievement has demonstrated the important role that teachers play in improving student outcomes and has also revealed wide variation in teachers' qualifications and experiences across schools. Schools serving low-income students in urban areas, for example, have fewer well-qualified teachers than schools in nonurban settings…

In this empirical study, teacher reported knowledge, use, preparation, and importance of higher-level thinking summative assessment questions were analyzed. This study was conducted using a survey distributed to seven Minnesota high schools that represented urban, suburban, and rural settings. Survey responses were cross tabulated with demographic…

Public education matters, whether you're a student, parent, teacher, administrator, employer, or taxpayer. Although you undoubtedly know something about public education, you may be unaware of important facts about the U.S. educational system or may be surprised to learn how things have changed in recent years. This edition of "A Public…

The reform movement embracing charter schools is based largely on the promise that these autonomous schools will out-perform public schools plagued by bureaucratic administration--an expectation reflected in the federal NCLB law. However, the many state-based reports have been mixed, and previous national studies have suffered from serious…

Public education matters, whether one is a student, parent, teacher, volunteer, employer, employee, or taxpayer. Although an individual undoubtedly knows something about public education, he may be unaware of important facts about the U.S. education system or may be surprised to learn how things have changed in recent years. In this primer on…