Niceness is a socialized disposition, particularly amongst white women, that prioritizes comfort and neutrality while preventing resistance against oppressive systems. Given the demographics of teachers and teacher educators, niceness and whiteness are deeply embedded in programs and institutions. As eight white, female teacher educators, we drew…

When the federal government banned incarcerated students from accessing Pell Grants in the mid-1990s, a new model for supporting Higher Education in Prison (HEP) programs emerged--utilizing Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) as third-party facilitators to fill the gaps left behind in the absence of federal financial aid. With the long-awaited…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies or standards derive from SEL frameworks. In this report, the terms "SEL competencies" and "standards" are used interchangeably to refer to statements about "what students should know and be able to do," recognizing that states may use different terms such as…

Education Commission of the States (ECS) conducted interviews with members of the National College Attainment Network (NCAN) in six states to gather insights into current and critical state policy issues. This summative paper outlines the findings of these interviews, which took place between May and July 2021. The interviews also gathered input…

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…

In their plans to carry out the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states universally recognize what New Leaders has long known: "leadership changes everything." In fact, every single state has committed to directing some portion of its federal funding into investments in leadership--from teacher leaders to principals and…

It is common practice for K-12 schools to assess multilingual students' language proficiency to determine language support program placement. Because such programs can provide essential scaffolding, the policies guiding these assessments merit careful consideration. It is well accepted that quality assessments must be valid (representative of the…

There is a widening college access gap in the United States. The ever-rising cost of higher education, coupled with diminished government financial support and growing income inequality, have put college out of reach for many at a critical juncture when postsecondary education is essential for enhancing career prospects. The situation has been…

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe successful innovations in educational leadership preparation programs. Professors of educational leadership from across the nation nominated innovations of 12 programs. Based on review of descriptions of the innovations provided by nominees, further documentation on the innovations was…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers state leaders the opportunity to refocus their education systems on improving opportunity and outcomes for young people who have been underserved for far too long. The law includes a number of important requirements to focus on equity in school accountability, but it also leaves many key decisions up to…

This publication uses draft equity plans developed by three Reform Support Network pilot States to demonstrate several approaches to the development of State equity plans in response to the Secretary's Excellent Educators for All initiative. It summarizes how the State education agencies addressed each component of the equity plan and their…

This report provides a new resource for understanding the state of urban public schools in the U.S. Geared specifically toward city leaders who want to evaluate how well traditional district and charter schools are serving all their city's children and how their schools compare to those in other cities, the report measures outcomes for all public…

A remarkably consistent picture of the value of the arts in a comprehensive Pre-K-grade 12 education emerges from a review of two decades of theory and policy recommendations about arts education. Over the past decade, the National Governors Association, the Education Commission of the States, the National Association of State Boards of Education,…

Dramatic changes in the higher education landscape and the recent recession have intensified the challenges students face in postsecondary enrollment and completion. In response, some states, communities, and institutions have developed "postsecondary opportunity programs (POPs)"--comprehensive college access and success programs…

This study examines trends in Black student achievement and in the Black-White achievement gap over the period 2000 to 2007, employing data from ten states drawn from the NAEP Grade 8 mathematics assessments. Results are obtained for three levels of aggregation: the state, school poverty stratum within the state, and schools within poverty…