This brief reviews state plans submitted to the U.S. Department of Education as of October 1, 2017. It focuses on three key topics for early learning in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA): setting clear goals and policy priorities for early learning, integrating early learning into school improvement, and supporting early childhood educator…

Determined parents are powerful advocates at all levels of our society. Parents can move mountains for their child, and they often do. State teams that actively collaborate with parents gain new perspectives, ideas, and energy. Statewide transition planning teams welcomed the authors--three parents who are also professionals active in the deaf…

This publication highlights how state leaders tackle data interoperability with the emergence of data standards for student information, assessment, digital content, and other educational applications. While states are at various maturity levels for interoperability, each state shares goals for interoperability, the drivers for those goals,…

In this response to Spaulding et al.'s examination of state education agency (SEA) guidance on severity ratings, these authors contend that Spaulding et al. provided an incomplete view of current practices in public schools. These authors state that, ultimately, school speech-language pathologists (SLPs) must follow all state regulations and local…

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is working to respond to increased interest in the use of growth models for school accountability. Growth models are based on tracking change in individual student achievement scores over multiple years. While growth models have been used for decades in academic research and program evaluation, a…

The improvement of the rural schools of the United States is the most important school problem. The most important factor in their improvement must be better educated and better trained teachers. The education and training of teachers should always have some special reference to the work of the schools in which they are to teach. Therefore any…