Relative to earlier research, this study from the Center for Reinventing Public Education provides a more in-depth analysis of policy features across the 27 states that allow online charter schools. It presents a well-organized description of policy features and includes a set of policy recommendations that generally, but not always, follow well…

Context: In the past two years, states have implemented sweeping reforms to their teacher evaluation systems in response to Race to the Top legislation and, more recently, NCLB waivers. With these new systems, policymakers hope to make teacher evaluation both more rigorous and more grounded in specific job performance domains such as teaching…

Educational accountability policy rests heavily on the assessments used to influence teaching, learning, and school improvement. A long-debated aspect of assessment use, consequential validity, plays an important role in public interpretation of assessment use whether for individual students or for state policy. The purpose of this survey study…

Based on the 2018-2019 Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) results, nearly half (47%) of all entering kindergarten children in Maryland displayed the foundational skills indicating they are fully ready for kindergarten. A third (33%) are approaching readiness. Twenty percent of children are assessed with emerging readiness skills. The school…

In this article, we explain how overly prescriptive, rigid state statutory and regulatory policy frameworks regarding teacher evaluation, tenure and employment decisions outstrip the statistical reliability and validity of proposed measures of teaching effectiveness. We begin with a discussion of the emergence of highly prescriptive state…

Based on Maryland's 2017-2018 Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) results, nearly half of all entering kindergarten children show foundational skills indicating they are fully ready for kindergarten, more than a third are approaching readiness, and 18% have emerging readiness skills. Results for the 2017-2018 school year show a slight increase…

Bullying is a major threat to school safety and appears to be increasing at alarming rates. Leaders throughout the entire school community need to understand the implications and ramifications of bullying on both the student who bullies and students who are bullied. This imperative mission calls for transformational leaders, armed with strong…

Physical activity promotion in the academic classroom (PAPAC) is an effective means for increasing children's school-based physical activity. In the context of a South Carolina policy requiring elementary schools to provide children with 90 min of physical activity beyond physical education every week, the purpose of this study was to test a…

Under incapacitation theory, higher incarceration rates are expected to correlate with accelerated reductions in crime. California's contemporary incarceration patterns offer an opportunity to analyze the validity of this theory, particularly as it applies to young people. This study focuses on California's juvenile incarceration and crime trends…

ConnCAN's Spend Smart: "Fix Our Broken School Funding System" was released concurrently with a bill introduced in the Connecticut legislature, based on the principles outlined in the report. However, the report is of negligible value to the policy debate over Connecticut school finance because it provides little or no support for any of…

This article updates developments regarding Diploma Mills, Accreditation Mills, and Counterfeit Diploma & Transcript operations. It will cover identification & prosecution, to new entities now appearing in these growth industries with annual revenues over one billion dollars. This article will address federal and state laws, a new Federal…

Social policy and federal and state legislation require the use of single cut scores when tests of cognitive ability, knowledge, or skills (CAKS) are used to make high-stakes assessment decisions, such as whether students or employees may be promoted. Rationales offered for the requirement are that cut scores provide objective standards and are…

Background/Context: In recent years, state legislatures, state education departments, and advocacy groups in over 30 states have sponsored education adequacy studies, which aim to determine objectively the amount of funding needed to provide all students a meaningful opportunity for an adequate education. Not surprisingly, because of their growing…

Many states have a disconnected body of laws regarding educator evaluation. Uncoordinated legislation can create problems with respect to evaluation, appropriate standards and methods to be employed, and implementation strategies. This paper describes Utah's educator-evaluation legislation to illustrate this phenomenon. Four statutory provisions…

Arena models developed by T. Mazzoni relating to policy innovation are applied to the passage of open enrollment legislation in Ohio. The macro arena was relatively inactive, but a shift from the subsystem to the leadership arena occurred, partially validating Mazzoni's revised model. (SLD)