How do districts create principal pipelines that last in the face of change and uncertainty? By thinking long-term from the start of planning. This report from Vanderbilt Peabody College and Policy Studies Associates offers an "Implementing for Sustainability" framework. It also gives guidance for districts who want to incorporate…

This study explored the impact of rural school district consolidation in eastern North Carolina. Wilkins County is a low-income, low-performing county with an average daily membership (ADM) of 1,501 students. This county suffers from rural population decline, decreasing ADM, and is categorized as low performing, with only two of the six schools…

This study explored the impact of rural school district consolidation in eastern North Carolina. Wilkins County is a low-income, low-performing county with an average daily membership (ADM) of 1,501 students. This case study reviews the process of consolidation one year after the 2017-2018 consolidation in terms of academic, financial, and…

During the past decade, states and districts have made significant investments in developing systems to measure teacher performance. The goals of such systems are to improve practice, inform professional growth, and ultimately improve student learning. In the very best of these systems, educators know the expected teaching standards and receive…

The Public School Forum's Top Education Issues outlines the Forum's priorities on what should be at the forefront of education policy decision-making each legislative biennium, as the Forum works toward eliminating the systemic racism and inequities that exist and are visible throughout the educational system. The Top Education Issues publications…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the lived experiences of teachers during their job searches for employment in the field of education which could inform recruiters in a rural, low-wealth LEA in southeastern North Carolina of the behaviors they need to display and the strategies they need to employ in order…

For much of the last two decades, beginning with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, the top political leaders have shown concern about children stuck in failing public schools. NCLB required districts to do something -- not enough, but something -- about those schools. Millions of children still languish in low-performing schools,…

Central to the Public School Forum of North Carolina's mission is the imperative to ensure that all students in North Carolina have equitable access to a meaningful, high quality education through a strong system of public schools. It is important to note that equitable does not mean equal. Achieving equitable access to high quality education for…

This study considers the impact of federal funding on the administrative expenditures of local school districts since the passage of the No-Child-Left-Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. Under NCLB, federal education funds were made contingent upon a variety of accountability and reporting standards, creating new administrative costs and challenges for…

This report examines the ongoing effort to revamp teacher evaluations. After collecting and synthesizing data from 17 states and the District of Columbia, it provides five major lessons for policymakers. New evaluation systems are just one part of sweeping changes in American schools. Because the number and extent of these changes are daunting,…

Leading Charlotte foundations formed a funding collaborative to support a five-year district turnaround initiative to dramatically improve educational outcomes for students in the West Charlotte High School corridor, one of the city's lowest-performing feeder zones. The "Project L.I.F.T." initiative involves four areas of education…

The purpose of this study was to examine school counselors' perception of how innovative counseling practices are or are not lived in a local school district. The eastern North Carolina school district was selected because MEASURE was being introduced in the district as a new way for program evaluation. The acronym MEASURE stands for Mission,…

This report presents the findings from a rigorous national survey of charter school authorizers conducted in 2011 by the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA). This is the fourth time NACSA has conducted this type of national survey. As in years past, the vast majority of authorizers (90 percent) are school districts and they…

The professional standards of school nursing practice provide a framework to help school nurses focus on their unique mission of promoting health and academic achievement for all students. Without the standards, the nurse’s role can become task oriented and limited in scope. By using an evaluation tool that reflects the standards, nurses not only…

In one of the first large-scale analyses of urban trends on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the Council of the Great City Schools and the American Institutes for Research identified urban school systems that demonstrated high achievement or significant achievement gains on the NAEP, and examined possible factors behind…