This comparative case study explores how 18 state education agencies (SEAs) support school districts in advancing standards-based elementary science reform. We identify how SEAs understand their work in advancing elementary science reform and describe how SEAs sought to engage districts in bridging from standards to classroom practice. Based on…

The rapid transition to emergency remote teaching in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic altered public education as schools closed across the United States. Eighty percent of teachers reported interacting with students online, often utilizing free technology like Zoom and Google Workspace for Education. This article provides a comprehensive…

State educational agency content coordinators commonly experience tensions in their professional roles related to distinct sets of beliefs, or logics, about who "should" control what students learn: the state bureaucracy, the local community, or the broader profession. Using an institutional logics frame and drawing on interviews with…

While recent research provides insights into how district and school leaders responded to the extraordinary disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, less is known about the role of influential state-level education leaders during the crisis. In this paper, we draw on interviews with state leaders to examine their efforts to support students'…

This study explores the prevalence and implementation of four key school counseling policies at the state level and to what extent they are monitored for positive impact on the school counseling profession. Drawing on an analysis of state school counseling policy documents and interviews with school counseling leaders from 30 state education…

Contemporary education reform movements in the United States have emphasized accountability for student performance. Policy actors serving within the executive branch have arguably gained power in part to provide this accountability function. The present study, in which Ohio and Pennsylvania serve as state case contexts, examines the changing…

School turnaround--the rapid improvement of student achievement in low-performing schools--is increasingly a major topic of interest in K-12 public education. Federal legislation has left varying degrees of school improvement-related responsibilities up to states, and policy makers have divergent views about how to realize turnaround. We…

This article highlights a set of principles and guidelines, developed by a diverse group of specialists in the field, for appropriately including English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities in large-scale assessments. ELLs with disabilities make up roughly 9% of the rapidly increasing ELL population nationwide. In spite of the small overall…

This article examines how SEAs in three states designed, installed, and operated statewide, longitudinal student information systems (SLSIS). SLSIS track individual students' progress in K-12 schools, college, and beyond and link it to individual schools and teachers. They are key components of the information infrastructure of test-based…

Public officials are increasingly contracting with the private sector for a range of educational services. With much of the focus on private sector accountability on cost-effectiveness and student performance, less attention has been given to shifts in democratic accountability. Drawing on data from the state of New York, one of the most active…

This study draws from 4 years of qualitative case study data to describe how programmatic and district factors interacted to affect reform sustainability in two school districts--one urban and the other suburban. These districts have been implementing a reform developed by the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) for over a decade. NNPS…

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires that two accountability strategies--raising standards and public pressure through publicizing performance data--be implemented simultaneously. However, when coupled, they may produce an inappropriate consequence for public opinion. The public may misunderstand the drop in achievement that occurs when the bar is…

As the variety of state education agency (SEA) responses to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 demonstrates, different SEAs interpret the same federal educational policy differently. Nonetheless, little research has depicted how federal policies are changed by SEA-based policy intermediaries. Using an "ethnography of educational policy"…

This article relies on a case study of a policy evaluation to illustrate how issues of social justice arise for action or inaction in a political environment. The article uses the case study to show that social justice issue formation is shaped by the personal beliefs of the actors, the prevailing political culture, the evolutionary path of the…

Examines competency testing reforms in a state education agency and a local school district. Addresses linkages among reform impetus, implementation, and consequences in both sites. Identifies general issues in high stakes testing reform and highlights evaluation's role in mediating complex political, technical, and social issues. Includes 13…