Over the past several years, schools across the nation have seen historic declines in student performance in reading, math, and other academic subjects due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. School closures adversely affected student groups at different rates and further exacerbated long-standing learning gaps. There has been a debate among scholars for…

This brief seeks to improve staff effectiveness while maximizing and streamlining support for students and families experiencing homelessness, ensuring they receive the assistance they need and deserve. The guidance is intended for, but not limited to, Massachusetts policymakers and Boston Public Schools (BPS) administrators, offering key insights…

The Department is providing States flexibility for reporting SY 2019-2020 average daily attendance (ADA) data in order to ensure the data are consistent and as accurate as possible. As required by section 8101(1) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), each State will continue to report ADA based on either the Federal or the…

Multilingual learners (MLL) are a large and growing group of disadvantaged students in the United States public education system who come from refugee and immigrant backgrounds and require linguistic instruction, in addition to content instruction. MLLs are entitled to language instruction, and school districts receive additional funding for these…

When Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act in 2015, it intended to send a strong signal: any further encroachment of federal authority on the nation's K-12 schools needed to end. Compared to its more prescriptive predecessor in 2000, known as No Child Left Behind, the new law, dubbed "ESSA" for the Every Student…

Purpose: This article presents a definition and rationale for evidence-based reform in education, and a discussion of the current state of evidence-based research, focusing on China, the U.S., and the UK. Design/Approach/Methods: The article contrasts the state of educational research in the U.S., the UK, and China, world leaders in evidence-based…

As educators confront the challenge of remediating COVID-19 learning loss--and policymakers wrestle with measuring it amid widespread discontent with testing--now is an apt time to consider how much of the current accountability and assessment regime is truly necessary. This report examines the state of testing post-March 2020 and explores how a…

In 2024, state legislators introduced hundreds of bills that would affect data collection, access, and use across early education, K-12, postsecondary, and the workforce. As in 2023, legislators continued to introduce and enact legislation governing cross-agency data systems. These policies are the most important step toward making statewide…

As states consider non-academic measures of school quality for their accountability plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act, few are choosing to focus on the school climate in which students learn. That's not a surprise, given concerns about the validity and usefulness of existing climate surveys. However, the authors argue, a recent study…

When COVID-19 forced a hiatus in federally mandated assessments in spring 2020, it interrupted a quarter century of effort to track, disaggregate, and publicize achievement levels at the school level. The aborted school year put a big data gap where 2020 scores should have been. Combined with the already raging assaults on testing, state education…

When done reliably and efficiently, measuring school climate can help improve schools' vital signs and help state boards of education realize their goals and objectives for the system as a whole. Moreover, because it is as consequential to schools as checking heart rates and blood pressure are to humans, schools should always use climate measures…

Our nation spends approximately $650 billion per year on our K-12 education system. To understand how those dollars impact students, we need to examine spending where it reaches them: at the school level. The document, developed by the National Center, describes a national data archive that uses all elements of Interstate Financial Reporting (IFR)…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires that state education agencies (SEAs) conduct periodic resource allocation reviews (RARs) in districts that serve low-performing schools. The mandate represents a new opportunity for states and districts to examine the connection between resource allocation and academic outcomes, but the language of…

This contribution takes a critical perspective on digital school performance platforms (SPP), which today play a key role in US state education monitoring and accountability. Using examples from two different US state education agencies, I provide an analytical disentanglement of some key dimensions of such platforms' enactment and materiality. I…

The primary purpose of Title 1, Part D programs is to improve the educational outcomes for youth who are categorized as "neglected" (n), "delinquent" (d), or at-risk under the statute. This brief is designed to help State Coordinators, grantees involved in data collection or analyses, and personnel involved in the design of…