As federal funding for summer learning as a pandemic recovery strategy phases out, state governments face decisions about their future role in supporting students' access to quality summer learning opportunities. This brief is based on the full report, "How States Are Expanding Quality Summer Learning Opportunities," and summarizes…

Northeastern University's EdD faculty faced unique challenges during the pandemic and racial reckoning following George Floyd's murder. During this period, however, we found opportunities to adapt and improve our program. We prioritized compassion and connection. We made significant strides in curriculum development through design and…

Disaggregated data and information on other equity-focused indicators provides families with the information they need to truly understand how their students are supported in the classroom and ensure that leaders are directing supports to the students who need them most. But DQC's "Show Me the Data" review of 2021 state report cards…

Prioritizing social, emotional, and behavioral supports is essential for student success. By establishing systems to support students' social (how they interact), emotional (how they feel), and behavioral (how they act) needs and growth, educators and leaders can ensure that all students have full access to instruction and the essential skills for…

The purpose of this brief is to provide school-level examples of how early college practitioners are collecting and using data to improve their practices. Examples three and four are school-level data from two early college partnerships: the MetroWest CPC (Framingham, Milford, Waltham), and Lawrence. The brief begins, however, with the national…

Beginning with the 2020/21 school year, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) began an ongoing effort to collect and analyze literacy screening assessment data from schools and districts participating in certain state grants to inform improvement efforts. Grantee schools and districts that provide literacy…

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 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…

This contribution takes a critical perspective on digital school performance platforms (SPP), which today play a key role in US state education monitoring and accountability. Using examples from two different US state education agencies, I provide an analytical disentanglement of some key dimensions of such platforms' enactment and materiality. I…

This article describes a 6-week module course called Just Google It! that the author developed and teaches each fall semester. Students who take the course explore personal data collection by private companies, search algorithms, identify implicit bias in the results, and learn the best recommended privacy and security practices. At the end of the…

Youth in the juvenile justice system need access to high-quality educational services and supports in order to reduce their risk of reoffending and increase their likelihood of further participation in education and the workforce. However, states have historically struggled to provide effective educational services to youth who are incarcerated.…

The recommendations in this brief create a framework for using data effectively to make instructional decisions. The availability of student-level data for educators has pushed forward the movement to strengthen the role of data to guide instruction and improve student learning. While improvements in technology and assessments, as well as recent…

Defining and measuring success are not merely process steps, but critical conversations that shape how education is understood and delivered. They influence how individuals within and outside the system perceive the goals of education. They shape the incentives for stakeholders seeking to improve educational outcomes. Methods of measuring success…

Individual teachers, administrators, and parents made tremendous efforts to continue educating the Commonwealth's children between March and June of this year. But no amount of dedicated individual effort could have overcome fundamental challenges: weak guidance to districts from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) against…

There is a growing body of research that suggests the first year of high school is a critical transition point for students. It also finds course-taking and successful completion of those courses in 9th grade to be valuable predictors of students' success in high school. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides states an opportunity to…