Reflecting post-bureaucratic organisation theory, education reformers intended charter schools to empower school-level leaders, most typically principals, with autonomy to pursue clear, student-centred missions. Yet little research explores whether charter school principals have more power than traditional public school counterparts. We summarise…

This Education Trends report examines the different structures and strategies--including the creation of state offices, the consolidation of others, and collaboration and coordination across several state agencies--used in the states to govern early education. State examples and policy considerations are included to provide insight and help…

The Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to identify schools with low-performing student subgroups for Targeted Support and Improvement or Additional Targeted Support and Improvement. Random differences between students' true abilities and their test scores, also called measurement error, reduce the statistical reliability of the performance…

This Snapshot highlights key findings from a study that used Bayesian stabilization to improve the reliability (long-term stability) of subgroup proficiency measures that the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) uses to identify schools for Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI) or Additional Targeted Support and Improvement (ATSI). The…

The "Stabilizing Subgroup Proficiency Results to Improve the Identification of Low-Performing Schools" study used Bayesian stabilization to improve the reliability (long-term stability) of subgroup proficiency measures that the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) uses to identify schools for Targeted Support and Improvement (TSI)…

In response to federal accountability measures, the Pennsylvania Department of Education introduced the School Performance Profile, shifting the student achievement spotlight from school districts to individual schools, thus placing the onus squarely on the shoulders of teachers and school leaders. Shared leadership has been touted in the…

Despite the myriad of challenges that families, students, teachers and policymakers faced in 2021, the momentum to transform education did not waver. New opportunities for students unfolded in more than a dozen states through expanded private and public school choice. An additional 1.7 million students gained eligibility for private choice alone,…

This qualitative study focuses on school administrators' understandings and actions as leaders of the Common Core reform. In interviews with eight school and district leaders from five diverse districts in Pennsylvania, several aspects of Common Core, or PA Core, implementation were consistent across regardless of student population demographics…

Introduction and Background: Colleges and universities have an obligation to educate graduate students who demonstrate civic literacy and who can engage in civic inquiry and action. Service-learning and community engagement courses are highly effective in developing civic-mindedness. Graduate professional programs may have additional reasons for…

This article describes mutual accountability, an innovative approach to accountability which opens new possibilities for pursuing educational equity for all students. Mutual accountability calls for each stakeholder -- students, teachers, parents, and administrators -- to work collaboratively in pursuit of educational goals. The article presents…

This qualitative multiple-case study focused on administrators who are educational leaders at four separate schools in a school district located in a rural area of the State of Pennsylvania. The problem addressed was a lack of formal education and training in the field of special education among public school administrators. Administrators often…

This technical report is one of a series of four technical reports that describe the results of a study comparing eight alternative models for estimating school academic achievement using data from the Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon, and Pennsylvania accountability systems. The purpose of these reports was to evaluate a broad range of models…

In partnership with the National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC), the National Association for Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has been conducting authorizer assessments over the past six years. However, the correlation between high-quality authorization practices and charter school impact has largely been unexplored. This report uses a…

Although much has been written about the potential benefits of effective data use in schools, considerably less attention has been paid to how schools make sense of the data generated from performance-based accountability measures. This article explores schools' usage of state test data, the intensity of data use, and the perceived utility of…

The purpose of this embedded, mixed methods, research study was to acquire knowledge regarding the Pennsylvania Educator Effectiveness system while connecting teacher effectiveness with student achievement. The sample size consisted of five administrators and 18 public school teachers. The teachers taught mathematics in grades 4 through 8 at a…