Education today is evolving to foster essential psychosocial skills like creativity, critical thinking, and responsibility, equipping students for 21st-century challenges. However, it is crucial to examine the motivations driving these changes and their alignment with broader societal goals beyond merely economic interests. This article explores…

Across the nation, states and districts are in the process of building better teacher evaluation systems that not only identify highly effective teachers but also systematically provide data and feedback that can be used to improve teacher practice. The "Practical Guide to Designing Comprehensive Teacher Evaluation Systems" is a tool…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 (Public Law 114-95) requires each state to create a plan for its statewide accountability system. In particular, ESSA calls for state plans that include strategies for reporting education outcomes by grade for all students and for economically disadvantaged students, students from major racial and…

Employers, postsecondary institutions, and civic leaders are urging greater focus on 21st century skills essential for college, career, and civic success: problem solving, interpersonal skills, and collaboration, among others. In response to these demands, states across the country are working to realign policies--on learning standards,…

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…

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were created in response to the shortcomings of No Child Left Behind era standards and assessments. Among those failings were the poor quality of content standards and assessments and the variability in content expectations and proficiency targets across states, as well as concerns related to the economic…

In today's economy, employers increasingly demand that workers have a high school diploma, yet America's graduation rates are unacceptably low, particularly among poor and minority students. Nationally, only about 70 percent of students graduate from high school on time with a regular diploma; for African American and Hispanic students, this…

This report of the San Francisco (California) Regional Office of the Inspector General concludes that the U.S. Department of Education should improve its present method of allocating special education funds among the states. It finds that the basis of these allocations, reported numbers of students receiving special education in each state, is…