The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers states an incredible opportunity to develop or refine a strategic vision for education to chart their own path forward. The new federal law allows education leaders and stakeholders to rethink their own accountability, funding, school improvement and grant-making systems by gathering input from the…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) has drastically changed the federal education landscape for the first time in more than a decade. State education agencies (SEAs) have been granted additional flexibility under the new law but first must establish their state strategic vision and evaluate how the new law will affect their accountability,…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) asks states to engage with a wide array of stakeholders throughout the development of their plans, encouraging outreach that goes well beyond the organizational leaders with whom the state education agency is most familiar. The purpose behind this outreach is to ensure that the state's ESSA plan truly…

For too many young people, the transition from high school to college or a career poses significant challenges. In Boston alone, nearly 5,000 16- to 24-year-olds are not in school or employed. This group, known as Opportunity Youth, represents incredible untapped promise and potential. Our latest report takes an in-depth look at what career…

This article develops a framework for investigating research use, using an "advocacy coalition framework" and the concepts of a "supply side" (mainly organizations) and "demand side" (policymakers). Drawing on interview data and documents from New Orleans about the charter school reforms that have developed there…

The Commission of Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing Minnesotans (MNCDHH) and the Minnesota Department of Education co-sponsored remote participation in two National Summits on Deaf Education in 2009 and 2010. The summits were focused on improved outcomes for deaf, deafblind, and hard of hearing students, partnerships, and collaboration. Summit…

The ninth annual Boston Opportunity Agenda Report Card looks at how the pandemic has affected many of the indicators used to track how Boston students are doing in education from early childhood through adulthood, as well as tracking the landscape of the Opportunity Agenda's efforts to strengthen the education pipeline. This report card contains…

Subtitle VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. §§ 11431-11435, hereafter referred to as "The McKinney-Vento Act"), reauthorized in 2001 by Title X, Part C of the No Child Left Behind Act, ensures educational rights and protections for children and youth experiencing homelessness. The most critical step in…

Federal funding for early childhood education and care promotes three overarching policy goals: (1) increasing children's access to services; (2) raising the quality of early childhood programs; and (3) fostering greater coordination among the many providers--public schools, center-based child care, home-based child care, Head Start, and more--of…

The Learning Passport is a collaboration between UNICEF, the University of Cambridge and Microsoft which aims to tackle an intractable problem: the quality of education in contexts where learners have been displaced. The Learning Passport is a response to the international crisis in education quality and learning outcomes. The project's specific…

The Common Core State Standards Initiative seeks to prepare all students to graduate high school without remedial needs, to improve transparency across states' accountability systems, and to foster efficiencies in the development and distribution of educational resources. The reform was adopted in more than 40 states and has been described as…

The executive summary a case study of two authorizers--Denver Public Schools and the District of Columbia (D.C.) Public Charter School Board--both with strong outcomes in many areas and a high or growing charter enrollment. For each, it summarizes how their approach to authorizing has shaped the way they address the issues that arise as charter…

This report provides a case study of two authorizers--Denver Public Schools and the District of Columbia (D.C.) Public Charter School Board--both with strong outcomes in many areas and a high or growing charter enrollment. For each, it summarizes how their approach to authorizing has shaped the way they address the issues that arise as charter…

This study examined the effectiveness of an intervention designed to reduce rates of chronic student absenteeism in New York City public schools. The study authors reported that schools participating in the intervention experienced greater reductions in rates of student chronic absenteeism than the comparison schools. Students who attended the…

Purpose: Research often neglects the full continuum of the STEM pipeline in terms of underserved and underrepresented populations. African American males, in particular, experience limited access, opportunity, and preparation along STEM trajectories preK-12. The purpose of this paper is to challenge this gap by presenting examples of preK-12…