Four-day school weeks are becoming increasingly common in the U.S., but their effect on achievement is not well-understood. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we conduct the most representative student-level analysis to date of the effects of four-day weeks on student achievement and within-year growth using NWEA MAP Growth data. We…

Critics claim that America's public schools remain feckless and hamstrung institutions, unable to improve even when nudged by accountability-minded politicians, market competition, or global pandemic. But if schools are so hopeless, then why did student learning climb in Los Angeles across the initial decades of the twenty-first century? In…

The contributions of assistant principals (APs) toward improving student and staff outcomes has not yet been a focus of much empirical research. In recent years, as the increased focus on improving student outcomes has shifted expectations and APs are now expected to perform some instructional leadership tasks, such as coaching and evaluating…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the Pathway to Leadership in Urban Schools (PLUS) program as implemented in a large urban school district. The program was designed to select and develop school assistant principals (APs) to be more effective at instructional leadership. The study spanned four school years, 2015/16 through 2018/19, and…

In 2007, the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) received funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program to implement the Pittsburgh Urban Leadership System for Excellence (PULSE), a set of reforms designed to improve the quality of school leadership throughout the district. A major component of PULSE is the…

In this study, the authors examined the academic performance of 18 urban districts that participated in the 2009 Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). The districts participated in grade 4 and grade 8 reading and mathematics assessments. Eleven of these districts also participated in the…

Understanding what makes an effective teacher, as well as how teachers sort by their effectiveness across schools, is central to understanding and addressing student achievement gaps. Prior studies have found substantial sorting of teachers across schools, with the schools with the highest proportions of poor, non-white, and low-scoring students…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Something in Common: Under New Regulations, States Must Adopt Uniform Calculation for High School Graduation Rates by…

Achievement in reading and mathematics of students at elementary schools participating in the Columbus (Ohio) 1989 School Improvement Program (SIP) has improved for the seventh year in a row, but achievement of low income students remains below that of other students. The goal of SIP, an effective schools project, is to improve the academic…

The central purpose of this book is to help leaders and professionals in government, education, business, philanthropies, and the media think about what needs to be done to ensure that minorities reach educational parity with the majority population as soon as possible. Chapter 1 discusses society's interest in the educational advancement of…