The Early Learning Challenge (ELC) program awarded more than $1 billion in four-year grants to 20 States to implement comprehensive and cohesive high-quality early learning systems that support young children with high needs and their families. A key lever in making these improvements was the enhancement of States' Quality Rating and Improvement…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) "Just Right" Outcomes Assessment: A Fable for Higher Education (Catherine M. Wehlburg); (2) Editor's Notes: Helping Faculty Members Learn (Linda Suskie); (3) Focus on the Bottom-Line: Assessing Business Writing (Michael Cherry and George Klemic); (4)…

Founded by TNTP, the Fishman Prize for Superlative Classroom Practice is an annual award for the nation's best teachers in high-poverty public schools. The goal is to shine a spotlight on great teaching and amplify the voices of some of the nation's best educators so that others can gain insight into their remarkable classrooms. No more than five…

In 2008, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) launched a differentiated accountability pilot to allow states to distinguish between those schools identified for improvement in need of substantial help and those closer to meeting achievement goals. In July 2008 and January 2009, the Department approved waivers to give nine states the…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Obama Releases Fiscal Year 2013 Federal Budget: Budget Proposes 3.8 Percent Increase in Discretionary Funding for…

The mission and vision of adult education is to provide every individual in Illinois access to Adult Education and Literacy services. In Illinois, more than 1.15 million adults have less than 12 grades of formal education, approximately 2.8 million Illinois residents speak a language other than English in their home, and more than 350,944…

Charter school boards enter into a critical bargain: autonomy for accountability. Compared with their traditional district counterparts, they operate with relative freedom in curriculum, hiring, budgeting, and other operational decisions. In exchange, they are held accountable for student performance in ways that traditional district schools are…

Today's accountability policies and changing demographics have created conditions in which leaders must rapidly build school capacity and improve outcomes in culturally diverse schools. This article presents findings from a mixed-methods evaluation of an Arizona Turnaround Leadership Development Project. The project drew on studies of turnaround…

In this qualitative case study, we investigate teachers' appropriation of language policy at one urban elementary school in Illinois. Recognizing classroom teachers' central role in the education of English learners, we probe teachers' policy appropriation, or how bilingual educators take state-, district-, and school-level policies and…

"TAP"™: "The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP™)" is an educator effectiveness program that aims to improve student achievement through supports and incentives for teachers. Based on the research, "TAP"™ teachers were found to have no discernible effects on student achievement in science, English…

In this article, the author examines the links between high stakes testing policies, school organization processes, and instructional practice using data from a study of K-5 and K-8 schools in Chicago. He argues that although the policy environment penetrates the classroom, this penetration is partial--stronger on some aspects of instruction than…

In recent years No Child Left Behind has provided new labels to supposedly high- and low-performing schools and has identified large numbers of schools as low performing. Are school-to-school differences in the quality of instruction offered as great as the public is led to believe? Using the disciplined inquiry typology of Newman, Marks, and…

States vary greatly in their implementation of standards-based accountability under No Child Left Behind, yet little evidence is available to guide policymakers on what attributes of state policy advance more tightly aligned instruction. This study uses survey data and content analyses from the Surveys of Enacted Curriculum to describe elements of…

Improving teacher preparation is critical to long-term improvement in teacher quality. More than 200,000 new teachers enter classrooms each year. Increasing student enrollment, the retirement of baby boom generation teachers, and high attrition in their first five years (between 40 and 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession) have…