This "Equity by Design" brief highlights equity issues that arise in the process of reopening schools during a global pandemic. The authors examine state plans and guidance for reopening schools across states in the Midwest & Plains Equity Assistance Center (MAP EAC) region which includes the 13 states of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa,…

Social distancing and school closures forced by the COVID-19 pandemic present extraordinary challenges for education. While the nation is just beginning to understand the impact of the last few months and what the months ahead will mean for students, families, and educators, the depth of students' connectedness to school and the quality of their…

The Data-Informed Accessibility--Making Optimal Needs-based Decisions (DIAMOND) project received funding in 2015 from an Enhanced Assessment Initiative grant to collect information that would inform the creation of professional development modules for educators making decisions within new accessibility frameworks. The DIAMOND project conducted…

From 2016 through 2019, 10 states strengthened their career readiness systems through the New Skills for Youth initiative (NSFY), a $75 million national investment by JPMorgan Chase & Co. to enhance state efforts to increase the number of learners across the country who are prepared for success in both college and career. As part of this…

As part of an ethnographic study of one rural school-community relationship, this paper explores how school and community leaders conceive of the purpose of schooling in their community, delineates the educational policies and practices that support this purpose, and offers insight into the implications of such a purpose. Adding to the rural…

The report contains real-world, proven school climate strategies to guide policymakers in building a comprehensive and coherent state-wide approach for improving school climate. It features 12 recommendations linked to existing state policy examples policymakers can use to build a comprehensive, coherent state-wide approach for improving school…

In August, the Manhattan Institute (MI) contracted with Rasmussen Reports to survey public opinion in five states about school choice policies generally, as well as charter schools specifically. Working with MI, Rasmussen crafted nine questions that were added to the organization's regular polling of likely voters for presidential and senatorial…

The U.S. teacher population is predominantly White, yet research has not yet determined how teacher race might matter to the identification of students with disabilities. This study examines the role of teacher racial composition in special education service receipt. Findings show that schools' proportion of teachers of color, net of all other…

Policy, systems, and environmental change are now widely accepted as critical to sustaining improvements in community health. Evidence suggests that such systems-level change is most effective when driven by community-based partnerships. Yet, after more than three decades of building community-based partnership work, health inequities have…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify (1) teacher-leaders' descriptions of their roles and activities, (2) perceptions of characteristics, knowledge, and skills of successful teacher leaders, (3) barriers to and support needed for teacher leadership, (4) the extent to which teacher leaders helped teachers understand and respond to…

Of all the rules that the U.S. Department of Education will have to formulate for the Every Student Succeeds Act, the proposed regulations to monitor that states and districts spend comparable amounts for schools eligible and not eligible to use Title I funds are attracting the most attention. Currently, districts can show comparability based on…

Providing consistent, excellent teaching for each student in every classroom depends on whether states and districts commit to transforming teaching into a profession that reliably builds and grows teacher expertise over the career continuum. To address the problem of inequitable access to effective teachers, the U.S. Department of Education asked…

The number of immigrant English learners attending schools in new destinations across the US is rapidly increasing. We draw on the sociological scholarship on "contexts of reception" and scholarship on sociocultural approaches to policy to examine the educational contexts faced by immigrant English learners in new destination communities…

In February 2015 a large group of scholars, researchers, and practitioners interested in P-20 finance issues gathered in St. Louis, Missouri, for the National Education Finance Academy's annual conference, on February 25-27, 2015 to discuss, among multiple topics, the state of P-20 finance in all 50 states. There were 35 states represented in the…

The 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) initiative is the only federal funding source dedicated exclusively to supporting local afterschool, before-school, and summer learning programs. Over the years, the program has evolved to become a local afterschool model -- serving students attending high-poverty, low-performing schools in…