Administrators face multiple challenges in effectively managing special education programs and services. These challenges include communication failures between stakeholders, inconsistency in implementing policies, difficulty in collaborating with multiple personnel throughout a district, and inefficiencies in implementing special education…

State takeovers of public-school districts are a controversial method to help fix struggling schools across the United States. This article considers the reasons behind takeovers, their effects on schools and communities, and both the positive and negative aspects of state involvement. We examine various state laws and specific examples from 3…

Experiencing hunger can negatively impact a child's health, behavior and overall performance in school. Though substantial progress has been made to increase access to school foods, ensuring adequate time to eat remains to be a challenge for students and schools. We know there are some Colorado schools and districts promoting best practices around…

Housing instability and homelessness are highly detrimental to children and youth, and the effects often linger long after the experience itself. Students who have experienced homelessness are more likely to drop out of school and, in turn, adults without a high school degree or GED are more likely to experience homelessness themselves. Under the…

This documentation is for the provisional version 2a file of the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD) Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey for School Year (SY) 2013-14. It contains a brief description of the data collection, along with information required to understand and access the data file.…

Historically, U.S. school districts have led schooling, while state education agencies (SEAs) have held a largely regulatory role in school improvement. Yet, a recent reform strategy, the "state takeover," allows an SEA to assume direct governance of a low-performing district -- potentially creating a much more active role for state…

In 2010, the Massachusetts Legislature lifted the cap on the number of charter schools that the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) can authorize in low-performing school districts. The "smart cap" requires the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to rank district performance (based on student outcomes)…

All youth need the support of parents, family members, and other caring adults. Parents and families are children's first teachers and, in many respects, their most influential role models and motivators. Among the varied efforts to ensure that children succeed and thrive, there is growing acknowledgement of how critically important it is to…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced America's public schools to close in the latter half of the 2019-20 school year. Schools' reopening plans vary for 2020-21. We reviewed the reopening plans for all 50 states, as well as the largest 120 school districts in the United States with a particular focus on reopening modalities, mask-wearing guidance, the…

The Common Core of Data (CCD) is a national statistical program that collects and compiles administrative data from SEAs covering the universe of all public elementary and secondary schools and school districts in the United States. The first CCD collection was for SY 1986-87. The predecessor to CCD was the Elementary and Secondary General…

Historically, state departments of education, or SEAs, have--for the most part--been compliance-focused organizations that managed federal education policy. Over the past several decades, these agencies have been education policy implementation entities. Today, while their compliance responsibilities have remained, they are taking on more…

Each year, the Rennie Center collects state-level indicators in our Data Dashboard to provide context on the condition of education in the Commonwealth. This data is collected from the MA Department of Early Education and Care; MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; MA Department of Higher Education; U.S Census Bureau; and U.S.…

In little more than a decade, Michigan has gone from being a fairly average state, to among the nation's bottom ten states in essential measures for student learning. It's a devastating fall, and students of color and low-income students--long poorly served by the state--are suffering the most from the system's terribly low performance. Governor…

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…

To blunt the effects of the economic downturn that began in 2008, President Obama called for, and on February 13, 2009 the Congress passed, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). This federal economic stimulus package had three primary goals: to save and create jobs, to cultivate economic activity and long-term growth, and to increase…