In 2019, the Washington Student Achievement Council adopted a Strategic Framework to better understand how state higher education policy contributes to campus and student success. The framework organizes the policy work into four areas deemed essential to achieve the 70 percent goal: (1) Affordability; (2) Enrollment; (3) Completion; and (4)…

The purpose of this paper is to describe a state-wide process used to determine which Teaching Works High Leverage Practices (Ball, 2016) pre-service teachers could be expected to implement at a proficient level by the completion of their preparation program (Initial HLPs), followed by two sets of high leverage practices novice teachers could…

Situated in an understanding of contemporary US education as heavily influenced by a neoliberal technocracy we conducted a Critical Discourse Analysis of the 2010 and 2016 National Education Technology (NETP) plans released by the US Department of Education. Our investigation was also guided by a cyber-archaeological excavation of digital…

In 2014, over 30 classroom teachers and administrators from one district joined higher education faculty and researchers from an educational non-profit organization to begin a three-year collaborative project. They wanted to find ways to leverage the use of one-to-one mobile technology (tablets) in kindergarten-2nd-grade mathematics classrooms to…

This inspirational book provides a concrete model of why university-district partnerships are essential to preparing justice-focused school leaders, and how these partnerships can thrive. Readers will find details of one such partnership, Leadership Education for Anaheim Districts (LEAD), which incorporated high-impact practices for equity,…

Postsecondary planning includes academic, emotional, and financial challenges for which many students and families are unprepared. School counselors will be able to better prepare students and their families for the college readiness process through understanding and implementing concepts from Family Systems Theory. This manuscript focuses on core…

Do employees at public colleges and universities have better retirement benefits than K-12 employees? This is the central question in the new report "Choice and Quality Among Retirement Plans for Educators." To answer this question, we evaluate the quality of higher education and K-12 retirement plans using five key variables: (1)…

As the United States grapples with COVID-19 and the dangerous dislocations it has brought to the American economy, it may be hard to turn our attention to an ongoing issue like workforce development. But we would argue there is no better time. While jobs have been returning, an unprecedented 26.5 million Americans filed for unemployment over a…

The need to address teacher pipeline challenges has never been more urgent--and doing so will require bold, systemic changes to how teachers are recruited, prepared, compensated, supported, and respected. Teacher Preparation Partnerships are one promising strategy to help address the state's significant teacher pipeline challenges through…

Purpose: This study responds to major administrative and policy priorities to support science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education by investigating a multi-sector ecosystem of regional organizations that support a STEM pipeline for education and careers. Design/methodology/approach: We use social network analysis to…

Although current and former English Learner (EL) or "ever-EL" students comprise one of the fastest-growing K-12 populations, we still know relatively little about the factors that influence their college-going. Using Perna's seminal college-going model as a launching point, we propose a policy-driven empirical approach to explore how…

In this paper, I present a design case of the problem-identification process prior to the initiation of a Networked Improvement Community (NIC). A NIC is a type of research-practice partnership (RPP) that brings together researchers and practitioners to tackle complex problems of practice, and in doing so, proposes a social reorganization of the…

Community colleges are beginning to build on guided pathways reforms in partnership with employers, universities, and K-12 schools to create cross-sector pathways to college and career opportunities for students--particularly those students traditionally underserved by higher education. The aim is to improve economic mobility for community…

Research shows that teachers of color can benefit all students, particularly students of color, yet only one in five teachers are individuals of color, compared to more than half of K-12 public school students. Increasing the diversity of educators can not only benefit students, but recruiting, preparing, and retaining more teachers of color who…

This Annual Plan presents the major initiatives and priorities the U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) intends to undertake to assist the Department in fulfilling its responsibilities to America's taxpayers and students. The Department will face several challenges in FY 2021; perhaps most significant among…