In October 2014, U.S. secretary of education Arne Duncan announced the Obama administration's new "education equity initiative," explaining that the president could not "continue to wait" for Congress to act "on behalf of vulnerable children." The centerpiece of this initiative was a 37-page "Dear Colleague"…

Education programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are intended to enhance the nation's global competitiveness. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2012 that there were more than 200 federal STEM education programs in fiscal year 2010. Since then, this portfolio of programs has changed. GAO was…

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) of 2014 offers multiple opportunities to align the workforce development efforts of these stakeholders through structural measures and targeted support. In this paper, the authors examine ways that WIOA can influence a state's job training environment and highlight the crucial role of community…

Student data privacy was a priority issue in state legislatures in 2016, though as expected, states passed fewer student data privacy bills into law than they did in 2014 and 2015. The privacy conversation has evolved since 2014, and now states have the ability to borrow from each other: California's 2014 Student Online Personal Information…

Barbabra Luborsky links the medical field and Montessori pedagogy to address atypical attention in children through the lens of the occupational therapist. She provides an overview of attention and sensory processing disorders and then informs about particular diagnoses, particularly ADHD and its comorbidity with other diagnoses. Her specific…

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) directs states and districts to identify equity gaps in students' access to excellent educators and transformative school leaders. States are encouraged to use Title II funds strategically in order to identify and remedy these gaps. A new report from The Education Trust draws on ESSA documents and state…

The McKinney-Vento Act was originally authorized in 1987 and originally sponsored programs to provide services to the homeless. The McKinney-Vento Act is designed to address the challenges that homeless children and youths have faced in enrolling, attending, and succeeding in school. Under the McKinney-Vento Act, State educational agencies (SEAs)…

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) released joint guidance on January 7, 2015, reminding states, school districts, and schools of their obligations under federal law to ensure that English Learners (ELs) have equal access to a high-quality education and the opportunity to achieve…

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…

Part I summarizes key topics of federal education policy articulating accountability requirements for state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs, or school districts). In that section we describe major goals of the legislation and which components are the same or changed in the federal law. The findings are grouped into…

In the 2017 calendar year, 49 states and Washington, D.C., carried out a total of 241 policy actions related to CTE and career readiness, including legislation, executive orders, board of education actions and budget provisions. This is a marked increase from 2016, one that reflects the priorities of state leaders. According to the Education…

The division of college, career and technical education (CCTE) of the Tennessee Department of Education established the office of postsecondary coordination and alignment in 2012 for the purpose of expanding and promoting early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) for all high school students across the state. The office is also charged with…

After passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, states assumed greater responsibility for designing their own accountability and assessment systems. ESSA requires states to measure "higher order thinking skills and understanding" and encourages the use of open-ended performance assessments, which are essential for…

The Tennessee Department of Education's office of coordinated school health (CSH) works with every school district in the state to address all aspects of student health, with a special emphasis on reducing Tennessee's childhood obesity rates. Encouraging adequate physical activity and providing physical education for all students are the central…