The Alliance Tennenbaum Family Technology High School, a charter school on L.A.'s east side, uses a hybrid model that combines online and traditional instruction and offers students three different ways to learn. In the months since it adopted the rotational model, known as Blended Learning for Alliance School Transformation, or BLAST, Tennenbaum…

In 2011, the New Mexico legislature passed changes to the Charter School Act that provided more accountability for both charters and authorizers in New Mexico. As part of that law, the Public Education Department (PED) is asked to submit an annual report on the status of charter schools in New Mexico. This is the first report submitted under that…

Over the course of developing Consolidated State Plans, states have spent time evaluating their accountability systems. Many of the accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, such as the inclusion of academic measures of students' proficiency on annual assessments, graduation rates, and English learners' progress toward…

In little more than a decade, Michigan has gone from being a fairly average state, to among the nation's bottom ten states in essential measures for student learning. It's a devastating fall, and students of color and low-income students--long poorly served by the state--are suffering the most from the system's terribly low performance. Governor…

This study investigates how recent policies employed under states' waivers to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) intersect with charter schools' purpose and functioning. By collecting and analyzing all ESEA waivers granted in 2013, we find that charter schools are disproportionately represented among schools as identified in the…

Spring 2015 marked the end of a three-year pilot program that the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) and the NAIS Commission on Accreditation sponsored on school use of the High School Survey of Student Engagement (HSSSE), created and administered by Indiana University. To better understand the student experience, HSSSE…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) replaced the No Child Left Behind Act with great fanfare and enthusiasm. Granting more power to states and curbing what was seen as federal overreach was well received. However, the new legislation maintains a predominately test-based accountability system with a federal mandate for interventions in well over…

Legislators have implemented an accountability system in an effort to increase school quality for all students. Policymakers assume that rewards and sanctions, based on results from high-stakes testing, can improve student achievement. The accountability system does not consider environmental factors that impact student outcomes. This study…

An exploratory study of two grammar schools in the South East of England is used to justify and demonstrate a self-assessed approach that investigates "trait" emotional intelligence (EI) among school leaders. First, the theoretical underpinnings of "ability" and "trait" EI approaches are critically compared based on…

This study investigated the extent to which early education classrooms across Indiana implemented evidence-based practices and how well the classrooms of different types of early education programs in our state compared with one another. Evidence-based effective curricula increase children's learning compared to those that are not effective. This…

Background/Context: Community colleges are central to the United States' college completion goals. A popular strategy pushed by a number of influential policy organizations and foundations is a policy of tying state funding to community college completions, otherwise known simply as performance funding. This is happening despite little to no…

There has been a noted growth in the number of teaching assistants (TAs) in mainstream schools. Research is inconclusive about their efficacy at changing outcomes for children and has proposed more training for TAs. Generic training models have suggested that enhancing self-efficacy in turn improves performance. This exploratory study investigated…

Over the past few decades, the figure of the market has clearly made its way into the field of education. For some authors, it represents an alternative to regulation by the public authorities, a different form of co-ordination which is better able to meet the objectives of the education systems. Through a secondary analysis of the PISA 2006…

Marc Tucker, President of the National Center on Education and the Economy, presents this compilation of interviews with top Chinese education leaders and international researchers exploring some of the policies and practices behind Shanghai's outstanding performance on PISA 2009 and PISA 2012. The interviews include perspectives from Kai-ming…

For months, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have been debated throughout the media, legislatures, education organizations, and households across the country. Education groups have released statements both in favor of the standards and opposed. As these arguments are being tossed around, 44 states and D.C. are implementing CCSS and other…