In the state of New Jersey, academic success at the high school level is defined by student achievement on the New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment (NJ HSPA), which students take in the 11th grade. New Jersey high school principals are accountable for ensuring that students who attend their schools are proficient in mathematics and…

The "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), signed into law in 2015 and still in the midst of implementation, requires states to develop and submit to the U.S. Department of Education a state education accountability plan. Compared to the previous federal education law, the "No Child Left Behind Act" (NCLB), ESSA mandates that…

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor invited postsecondary institutions to participate in an experiment to learn how federal financial aid might be used to cover the costs of prior learning assessment (PLA). PLA is the process of evaluating a student's prior workplace and experiential learning for academic credit. While the experiment is still…

As states continue to grapple with the most appropriate ways to hold schools accountable under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), there is a lack of consensus on how alternative settings should fit into accountability systems and whether those systems should be separate from or included in accountability systems for traditional schools. The…

Discussion of alternative education is growing across the country as states and districts look for ways to better serve students whose needs are not met in traditional high school settings. Alternative settings, however, vary greatly in how they operate, whom they aim to enroll, and the methods they use to educate students. The variation of…

The Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) is the State Lead Agency for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C program for Washington State. Within DCFY, the Part C programmatic home is the Early Support for Infants and Toddlers (ESIT) program. During Federal Fiscal Year (FFY) 2016, the ESIT program held contracts…

The Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) is authorized by Part B of Title V of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, P.L. 114-95) in 2015. Congress created this program to address the unique needs of rural schools that disadvantage them relative to non-rural schools. To…

Once dubbed Vocational Education, Career and Technical Education (CTE) celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2017. The federal Smith-Hughes National Vocational Education Act signed in 1917 marked the first nationwide investment in career training at the secondary level. That initial investment has continued through the Vocational Education Act,…

In recent years and especially over the past 12 months, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the unrest after the death of George Floyd, community colleges have been making efforts to view and rethink their missions through an equity lens. These efforts have included turning this prism toward institutional operations like student services, human…

In light of COVID-19, school divisions across the country closed their doors and shifted to remote instruction. In Virginia, little guidance was provided to assist educators and teacher educators with making this transition, particularly for students with individualized education programs (IEPs). In May of 2020, researchers surveyed Virginia…

This multiple-site case study of 24 intermediary organizations (IOs) engaged in postsecondary public policy examined how they identify policy issues and move issues, problems, and solutions onto the higher education policy agenda. Specifically, this study used agenda-setting theory to examine how IOs construct higher education policy issues,…

The thoroughly updated second edition of this dynamic and thoughtful collection focuses on the issues that have shaped American higher education in the past decade. "Essential Documents in the History of American Higher Education," designed to be used alongside John R. Thelin's "A History of American Higher Education" or on its…

The COVID-19 crisis has made delivering early intervention services much more challenging and could exacerbate racial inequities in health and education. But we can only fix what we can measure--so it is vital that states collect and report better data. A survey of state coordinators of early intervention services in fall 2020 focused on Black and…

Just as schools are working to appropriately address K-12 students' unfinished learning caused by the pandemic, early intervention systems are focusing on addressing the missed opportunities the pandemic created for young children and their families. Young children missing these opportunities for early intervention services are potentially at…

For much of the last two decades, beginning with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, the top political leaders have shown concern about children stuck in failing public schools. NCLB required districts to do something -- not enough, but something -- about those schools. Millions of children still languish in low-performing schools,…