Inertia created by the 15 years of teacher quality reform leading up to Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), coupled with a renewed focus on innovation and flexibility under ESSA, might provide a recipe for establishing new ways to recruit, develop, and retain teachers in rural schools. Many hope that the development of complex and tailored staffing…

We explore how the opt-out movement has responded to the combination of a stringent federal policy with weak and often variable implementation among the states. Gaps between federal expectations and states' understandings of just how to make NCLB's demands a reality have created policy ambiguity. Parents who oppose standardized testing have…

The annals of gifted education research contain few educational policy studies and even fewer studies on the impacts of changes in policy. To partially fill this gap, the authors performed an ABA study investigating the impact of accountability legislation on the number of students reported gifted in Texas public schools. Data were collected from…

School districts across the United States are implementing four-day school weeks. This study looks at the relationship between student achievement in the four-day school week compared to student achievement in the five-day school week. This analysis focused on a common criteria referenced test given to all students over a period of seven years in…

On December 10, 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (P.L. 114-95), legislation which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and replaces the widely criticized No Child Left Behind Act. After various versions were offered, rejected, or revised, the ESSA ultimately passed both chambers of…

This seventh edition of "Measuring up to the Model: A Ranking of State Charter School Laws" presents the latest activity in charter public school legislation across the country. Some highlights include: (1) significant activity regarding potential enabling legislation in several of the states without charter public school laws, (2)…

Over the past few years, opposition to statewide assessments around the nation has grown. A U.S. News & World Report article noted that as many as 500,000 students are opting out of state tests, including approximately one in five New York students. More commonly known as the opt-out movement, parents concerned about the quality and use of…

We rely on natural experiments in North Carolina and Washington State, which previously extended time to tenure by one year, to estimate models that assess the relationship between the extended probationary period and absence and attrition outcomes for teachers affected by the new tenure laws. Across both states we find evidence of decreases in…

This white paper explores the variation among Part C exiting categories as reported by the 50 states and Washington, D.C., using 2012-13 exiting data. Examining factors that may contribute to variation can lead to improved Part C exiting data quality within and across states. Examination of the Part C exiting data shows that 8 of the 10 categories…

All versions of top-down reform have an Achilles heel: Their focus on delivering the details of two or three measurable priorities is suitable only for systems pursuing traditional and comparatively narrow achievement goals. A digital age of complex skills, cultural diversity, and high-speed change calls for more challenging educational goals and…

Many states have implemented, or are implementing, accountability systems for schools and educators that incorporate test-based indicators. There is substantial disagreement on the merits of this trend, but the general consensus appears to be that value-added scores or median (mean) growth percentiles contain useful information with respect to…

Guided pathways increases attention to individual student journeys through California's community colleges, intentionally addressing innovations to optimize student success in completing the students' educational goals. This report primarily concerns placement and success in English pathways, including reading, and mathematics pathways, including…

Schools funded by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) are required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to provide services for eligible students with disabilities, such as learning disabilities or health impairments. Services for these students are listed in individualized education programs (IEP). The Department of…

For the most part, American colleges and universities have squandered the opportunity to respond to COVID-19 innovatively. Online education has accelerated, but the quality of colleges' new online courses is low. Rather than innovate, colleges simply hope to stay solvent until they can get back to normal. Many in-person colleges will fail to stay…

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) has established a working group to provide information and resources to parents, students, teachers, schools, and school personnel related to the possible outbreak of COVID-19 ("coronavirus") in school districts and postsecondary schools. Schools play an important role in disseminating…