President Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act, the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, on December 10, 2015. "Learning Forward's focus in this new law is its improved definition of professional learning," said Stephanie Hirsh, executive director of Learning Forward. "We've long advocated…

Online charter schools, charter schools that primarily utilize remote online instruction, have been both popular and controversial. As of October 2015, fully online charter schools operate in 26 (soon to be 27) states and enrolled approximately 200,000 students in the 2013-14 school year, comprising over 8 percent of all public charter school…

The State Title I, Part D (Part D) coordinator or other administrators of Part D programs have a focus on improving outcomes for children and youth. One way of outlining these goals and the path to achieving them is through the use of a logic model. This guide describes what a logic model is, outlines why and how a logic model can be useful, and…

Special education is the most highly litigated area within the field of education. Therefore, the purpose of the current article is to highlight cases (court decisions, Office of Civil Rights rulings, and State Educational Agency hearings) involving students with disabilities in 2015. Highlights from the case law point to the need for school…

More than 50% of all college students with a disability enroll in public 2-year institutions. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a type of disability that affects a growing number of students in postsecondary education. Currently, over 70% of 2-year public institutions enroll students with ASD. In spite of increased awareness, the vast majority of…

Digital technologies used by marketers continue to evolve. Sophisticated and personalized, they help ensure that today's children and adolescents are constantly connected and available to advertisers wherever they may roam. Moreover, because digital technologies enable extensive personalization, they amplify opportunities for marketers to take…

Educational reform in the past decade has placed a very strong emphasis on teacher accountability and student achievement. This change in focus has caused a thorough reexamination of how teacher quality and effectiveness are defined in the field, and has triggered a reform of the teacher evaluation process. As a result, generic, all-encompassing…

This manuscript reviews issues that differentiate traditional academic cheating from course misconduct that is motivated by a desire to defraud financial aid services in the U.S. Past research on college student cheating has assumed that cheaters are driven by an incentive to obtain undeserved grades in college in order to ultimately obtain a…

Federal laws and funding initiatives, such as the No Child Left Behind Act and the Race to the Top campaign, have created an increasing incentive for schools nationwide to document student progress, standardize assessment practices, and evaluate teachers according to student success. In response, the Common Core State Standards, a popular yet…

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), federal education mandates will be decreasing, which means states will have more flexibility and authority than they've had in decades. State education agency (SEA) leaders are confronting great change and great opportunity as many agencies move away from a focus on compliance with federal regulations,…

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015) moves education further along the path toward becoming the evidence-based and data-driven profession that policy makers have continually called for. They have stressed the need for hard evidence to undergird educational decisions rather than relying on anecdotes and intuitions. This means teachers must…

Inclusive rather than segregated schooling has been advocated in several significant international declarations during the past two decades. Even so children with significant intellectual disabilities are at greater risk of being excluded from mainstream education, unless particular efforts are made to support them in such settings. These children…

Educational policies such as Race to the Top in the USA affirm a central role for testing systems in government-driven reform efforts. Such reform policies are often referred to as the global education reform movement (GERM). Changes observed with the GERM style of testing demand socially engaged validity theories that include consequential…

Over the past two decades, the percentage of American students with disabilities educated in general classrooms with their nondisabled peers has risen by approximately 50%. This gradual but steady policy shift has been driven by two distinct narratives of organisational change. The social justice narrative espouses principles of equality and…

Over the past few years, students by the thousands have refused to take their state's standardized tests. This "opt-out" phenomenon has prompted debate in state legislatures and in Washington, putting states at risk of losing Title I funds. Advocates describe opt-out as a grassroots movement of parents concerned about overtesting,…