The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement is now more than twenty years beyond its inception when it was built on the concept that digital materials make learning content easy to reuse and share. This report discusses current legislative trends in OER and offers recommended OER practices for states.

This report captures state leaders' perspectives on various issues relating to education technology at this unique moment in time. To be more precise, the report provides an analysis of the feedback collected from state leaders through surveys administered in April and May 2023. It seeks to catalog the ways in which state education agencies are…

Much attention has been focused on the importance of providing physical and mental health services to students in educational environments in recent years. Millions of students receive school-based health services, and for many students, schools are their first and only option to receive health care. State policymakers have a lot to consider in…

In this brief, we examine an important but obscure form of state spending on K-12 education-state subsidies of school district pension costs. In 2018, this exceeded $19 billion across 23 states. To put that amount into perspective, 2018 federal spending on Title I programs was $15.8 billion. This revenue stream is often ignored in analyses of…

Over the years, as states have sought to incorporate more inclusive and relevant academic standards and curriculum for K-12 students, they have interpreted ethnic studies in both broad and narrow terms. While most states use the term ethnic studies to describe their efforts to incorporate the knowledge and perspectives of traditionally excluded…

In spring 2022, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology (OET) committed to advancing digital equity through the Digital Equity Education Roundtables (DEER) Initiative. Through DEER, OET hosted a series of national conversations with leaders from community-based organizations, as well as families and learners furthest…

Michigan's K-12 education system has arguably never truly supported all students to reach their full potential and prepare them for post-secondary opportunities and success. Instead, Michigan's education system has served as an engine of inequality when it should be providing opportunities for all kids to learn. Now is a critical time to address…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented challenge for state, district, and school leaders across the country. Whether states and districts mandate or choose an in-person or remote model or a hybrid model, which includes some aspect of virtual learning, ensuring that vulnerable students and teachers have a remote learning option has…

The State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) and its state member leaders play a pivotal role in driving high-speed broadband access to all students to best prepare them for college and careers. Complementing the 2016 "State K-12 Broadband Leadership: Driving Connectivity and Access" (see ED569341), this publication…

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented challenge for state, district, and school leaders across the country. Whether states and districts mandate or choose an in-person or remote model or a hybrid model, which includes some aspect of virtual learning, ensuring that vulnerable students and teachers have a remote learning option has…

Spurred by research showing the gains students realize from school-based social and emotional learning (SEL), states are adopting policies that support districts in implementing, sustaining, and spreading it. But to ensure long-term, systemwide gains for students, states must also address the SEL needs of teachers. To meet this challenge, states…

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) grants states more authority over their school accountability systems than did No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Hence, states have an opportunity to design improved school rating systems. Three of the most important improvements that states can make are to ensure that their accountability systems: (1)…

Emerging practices in both K-12 and higher education hold great promise in the establishment of equity frameworks. The use of finely disaggregated data, the effort to track additional student groups, and related work, all help to establish policies and tools to monitor the impact of reform efforts to address inequities. State programs and…

A Toolkit of Emerging Best Practices and Opportunities for Charter Support Organizations Approximately 6.4 million students--roughly 13 percent of the student population between ages 6-21--receive special education and related services in public schools every year. While students identified as eligible for special education require supports and…

With the 2015 passage of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), the oversight of language policy in U.S. schools shifted from federal to state governance. Although the education of students officially designated as English learners (ELs) has historically been grounded in federal law, we argue that ELs' educational experiences are also…