The purpose of this study was to examine the presence of continuous improvement and improvement science in the Consolidated State Plans required by ESSA. Through an exploratory qualitative content analysis, we examined 52 state plans to determine the extent education policies encourage professional educators to use a continuous improvement and…

For decades, policymakers in the U.S. have leveraged accountability policy as a governing tool to lift school performance and close the achievement gap. Accountability become so widespread that it arguably became a "policy paradigm" with the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002. Yet after just 13 years of…

Physical educators, including adapted physical educators, are often called upon to advocate for their students with disabilities, their physical education programs, or themselves to affect change in practice or a student's Individualized Education Program. These advocacy efforts are most effective when physical educators are knowledgeable about…

This article is a multiple case study of policy in Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. Both cities have developed programs that utilize government funding to increase access to public school K-5 arts education. While each city used a different path for advocacy and policy change, there were common threads that could be used as a framework…

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 has outlined an expanded role for school-based occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) as specialized instructional support personnel in general education. However, OTPs have continued to be viewed as related service professionals under special education due to barriers of high caseloads and decreased…

Teachers in the United States are increasingly tasked with using data to inform their classroom instruction both through federal policies, such as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2016), and state policies requiring the use of teacher-determined data-driven goals for performance evaluations (MA 603 CMR 35.07). Many teachers, however, report…

In 1934, 29 American secondary schools agreed to participate in a landmark study to determine whether high schools could better serve youth when given flexibility around curriculum and freedom to "experiment with the basic structure of schooling." Popularly known as the "Eight-Year Study," it bolstered movements for progressive…

School accountability is a powerful force in education. Today, schools are within the early years of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" ("ESSA") which has introduced a new accountability model to states and districts, in a post-pandemic era in which schools' roles and responsibilities within the larger society have continued to…

Title I accountability requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represent the present-day instantiation of Lau, which requires schools to provide a program for English learners (ELs) that supports their meaningful engagement and to provide transparent information about EL program quality. This study uses critical policy analysis to…

Under section 1001 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESEA), the purpose of the Title I, Part A program (Title I, Part A) is to provide all children significant opportunity to receive a fair, equitable, and high-quality education as well as to close educational achievement gaps. The…

For more than two decades, federal law has required states to identify schools failing to provide students with a high-quality education and has led to substantial debate about how best to do so. Appropriately identifying the lowest performing schools matters because it allows state and local education agencies to target limited resources for…

This is the appendices for the full report, "Identifying the Nation's Lowest Performing Schools: Shifts Following the Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)." This study examines state identification of schools for the most intensive support to see how changes in federal laws and regulations played out nationally and at the…

Given that standards-based education has been commonplace since the early 1980's, most practicing education professionals cannot remember a time where standards did not exist. Standards have historically served as a mechanism for accountability and academic achievement. In physical education, while not required in initial educational reforms, the…

Background: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015) constituted a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. ESSA, although still recognizing the need of standardized testing, diverged from NCLB by transferring a significant amount of power over…

In 2015, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law, replacing No Child Left Behind as the statutory education policy of the federal government of the United States (US). Building on prior shifts in accountability policy at the state level, ESSA focused attention and resources on building school leadership capacities. Five years on,…