Policymakers and education system leaders who invest in formal instructional teacher leadership need to carefully consider how to do so in ways that will best sustain teacher leadership and maximize its benefits for instruction and learning. This report outlines how giving teacher leaders responsibility, accountability, and authority to drive…

The 2020 election brought about legislative change across the country. New and veteran policymakers need information about the schools in their state. What programs are the most cost effective and work best for students? How can states attract and retain great teachers? What information do parents need to ensure that their kids are on track to…

Policymakers need information about the schools in their state. What programs are the most cost effective and work best for students? How can states attract and retain great teachers? What information do parents need to ensure that their kids are on track to graduate? For answers to questions like these, policymakers need high-quality data.…

Schools watch their students. Nearly every responsibility that schools shoulder includes an element of surveillance--from ensuring that preschoolers do not wander off, to keeping third graders on task, to stopping bullying and sexting. These responsibilities are not new, but schools' increased ability to monitor students continuously is. Despite…

This executive summary describes highlights from the report, "Building Management Information Systems to Coordinate Citywide Afterschool Programs: A Toolkit for Cities." City-led efforts to build coordinated systems of afterschool programming are an important strategy for improving the health, safety and academic preparedness of children…

The National League of Cities (NLC), through its Institute for Youth, Education and Families, produced this report to help city leaders, senior municipal staff and their local partners answer those questions as they work to strengthen and coordinate services for youth and families, particularly for those cities building comprehensive afterschool…

Publicly reporting timely, actionable, and comprehensible data is one of the most powerful ways states can promote transparency, strengthen accountability, and ensure that everyone with a stake in education--parents, educators, policymakers, researchers, and members of the public and press-- has access to the information they need to make good…

State and district school leaders across the U.S. have long sought ways to create success for children attending schools where too many have failed for far too long. A new approach to solving this old problem is called "starting fresh." By beginning anew with the freedom to do things vastly different, a real opportunity is created to…

In the chapters presented in this volume, leading experts describe some of the assessment challenges in greater detail and provide federal recommendations on how to address them. In "College and Work Readiness as a Goal of High Schools: The Role of Standards, Assessments, and Accountability," John Tanner of the Center for Innovative Measures at…

This reference guide outlines what is new for educational programs under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. It also describes how the NCLB's four guiding principles--(1) focus on what works; (2) reduce bureaucracy and increase flexibility; (3) increase accountability for student performance; and (4) empower parents--are brought to bear…

More than 2,100 charter schools serving more than 500,000 students operate in 37 states and the District of Columbia. This book contains a report of a study that examined the first 10 years of the charter-school movement. The study addressed the following questions: (1) What students do charter schools serve? (2) Are charter-school teachers more…

School choice, as one avenue toward educational reform, must be placed in context, according to this brief policy analysis. Prepared mainly for policymakers in California and stressing implications for public education in California, the report briefly discusses five samples of school choice: (1) magnet schools; (2) charter schools; (3) open…