As federal funding for summer learning as a pandemic recovery strategy phases out, state governments face decisions about their future role in supporting students' access to quality summer learning opportunities. This brief is based on the full report, "How States Are Expanding Quality Summer Learning Opportunities," and summarizes…

Intentionally designed afterschool and summer programs can benefit students' social-emotional skills, accelerate their learning, and even increase their school attendance during the school year. This infographic touches on the value of these programs, possible barriers that might limit access to students, and states with innovative models.

This resource was prepared in response to a request for information from a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) State about the innovative work with family child care providers that is being done in RTT-ELC Phase 2 States (Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wisconsin) and Phase 3 States (Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, New…

The record of charter schools has been a mixed bag. They have become racialized, radicalized into business-generation schemes, scorned by teachers unions, and in some cases rammed down the throats of poorer communities. But charter schools sometimes have spotlighted best practice in urban education. In this article, Samuel D. Henry, a former…

A quality education that promotes learning among all students is a prerequisite for an economy that increases opportunity, prosperity, and growth. School accountability policies, in which school performance is evaluated based on identified metrics, have developed over the past few decades as a strategy central to assessing and achieving progress…

This topic paper details how dual and concurrent enrollment programs can help states overcome workforce readiness and postsecondary access and completion challenges and how governors can strengthen these programs by using their bully pulpit, agenda setting authority and budgetary authority to do so. It concludes with a number of examples of how…

This resource was prepared in response to a request from a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) State for information about the Transformation Zones that 10 RTT-ELC States had included as key projects in their RTT-ELC plans. This information will be helpful to other States as they consider how to continue to increase the quality of…

This Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) annual performance report for the year 2016 describes Oregon's accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and strategies Oregon will implement to address those challenges. In 2016, Oregon continued on its trajectory to creating a dynamic early learning system capable of anticipating and…

The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program, authorized by Congress in 2011, is designed to improve the quality of early learning and development programs for children from birth through age 5. This discretionary grant program is administered jointly by the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services…

This Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) annual performance report for the year 2015 describes Oregon's accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and strategies Oregon will implement to address those challenges. Oregon continues to make great strides in efforts to create a dynamic early learning system capable of anticipating…

This Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) annual performance report for the year 2014 describes Oregon's accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and strategies Oregon will implement to address those challenges. The 2014 Annual Performance Report provides an overview of Oregon Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge Grant…

The national Quality Improvement Center on early Childhood (QIC-eC) funded four research and demonstration projects that tested child maltreatment prevention approaches. The projects were guided by several key perspectives: the importance of increasing protective factors in addition to decreasing risk factors in child maltreatment prevention…

The school and district report cards were created by the 1999 Oregon Legislature. The legislation requires that the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) produce and issue a report card to all public schools and districts in the state. The report cards are designed to: (1) Communicate the many good things occurring in Oregon's public schools; (2)…

The purpose of this 4-year efficacy trial, funded by IES under the Mathematics and Science Education topic, is to study the efficacy of a (Tier 1) core kindergarten math curriculum, "Early Learning in Mathematics" (ELM), when implemented under rigorous experimental conditions. In the first year of this study (2008-09), kindergarten…

Family members are a child's first and most important teachers. A growing body of research demonstrates that when families are actively engaged in their child's learning, children are better prepared for school and achieve at higher levels. Increased participation by families in pre-kindergarten programs has also been linked to greater academic…