While about three-fourths of all public school districts offer dual credit opportunities in Career Technical Education (CTE) courses, many programs face gaps in alignment between secondary and postsecondary CTE programs that lead to quality and equity inconsistencies in early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) across career pathways, ultimately…

Much research has noted the misalignment between kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) academic standards and curriculum materials used in classrooms. Many states and education organizations have been pushing for greater use of standards-aligned curriculum, especially during the past several years. In this report, the authors share results…

This Special Report outlines state-level policy components that help ensure work-based learning opportunities for high school students are well-coordinated, broadly accessible, aligned to state or regional workforce demands, and of high quality.

This topic paper details how dual and concurrent enrollment programs can help states overcome workforce readiness and postsecondary access and completion challenges and how governors can strengthen these programs by using their bully pulpit, agenda setting authority and budgetary authority to do so. It concludes with a number of examples of how…

The Career and Technical Education (CTE) playbook series has explored strategies and processes states can use to strengthen CTE program quality and provide students with pathways to postsecondary credentialing and middle- and higher wage career opportunities. In the first three CTE Playbooks, ExcelinEd provided a high-level view of how states can…

Mentoring is a common form of support for beginning teachers. State and district mentoring policies vary along a number of dimensions, yet policymakers have little evidence to draw on in designing effective mentoring programs. We use quantitative and qualitative data from a study of beginning middle school mathematics teachers in 10 districts to…

Education in Tennessee is on the rise. With the close of the Race to the Top era, Tennessee saw striking successes in student achievement that also called attention to the continued need to ensure students' long-term success. Tennessee is now launching a new chapter and if successful districts and schools in Tennessee will exemplify excellence and…

Despite policy efforts to encourage multiple measures of performance in newly developing teacher evaluation systems, practical constraints often result in evaluations based predominantly on formal classroom observations. Yet there is limited knowledge of how these observational measures relate to student achievement. This article leverages the…

Recent years have seen the convergence of two major policy streams in U.S. K-12 education: standards/accountability and teacher quality reforms. Work in these areas has led to the creation of multiple measures of teacher quality, including measures of their instructional alignment to standards/assessments, observational and student survey measures…

Researchers at NIET [National Institute for Excellence in Teaching] and elsewhere have studied the effectiveness of TAP™: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement in raising student achievement, improving the quality of instruction, and increasing the ability of high-need schools to recruit, retain and support effective teachers. This…

Responding to federal policy and recent research, states and districts have developed and begun implementing multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems. These systems generally include observational and/or student survey measures of instructional quality alongside measures of teachers' contributions to student learning (e.g., value-added models…

At a time of sustained unemployment and sluggish job growth, students and policymakers are increasingly asking tough questions about postsecondary education and training outcomes. Do graduates find jobs? What are they paid? What will they earn in the future? Despite growing national interest in this information, good answers are not widely…

Making robust and reliable information about schools accessible is one of the most powerful ways to foster engagement and promote informed decisions that will shape our communities. Though education data is frequently collected and aggregated at the state level, data is rarely synthesized across cities. This report provides comparable information…

This report provides educators and policymakers with information they can use to celebrate their successes, understand their unique challenges, and set meaningful goals to increase opportunity for all students. It is important to note that while AP® Exams are valid measures of students' content mastery of college-level studies in specific academic…

"Looking Closer" is the eighth biennial report to SREB states on their progress in meeting SREB's Challenge to Lead goals for education. Each customized state report documents progress on both measurable outcomes and state policies. Through effective policy implementation, the goals can help states drive improvements in student…