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,…

This is the final report of a large-scale independent evaluation of the Building Assets and Reducing Risks (BARR) model in ninth grade in eleven high schools in Maine, California, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Texas. This sample of schools included large and small schools in urban, suburban, and rural areas, serving students from a wide range of…

Part I summarizes key topics of federal education policy articulating accountability requirements for state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs, or school districts). In that section we describe major goals of the legislation and which components are the same or changed in the federal law. The findings are grouped into…

The current era of standards and accountability in U.S. public schooling narrows recognition and assessment to an almost exclusive focus on the production of test scores as legitimate markers of student achievement. This climate prevents rather than encourages democratic forms of exchange within and across social worlds. Via a case study of one…

Amid the cacophony of special interests fighting to be heard in statehouses and on Capitol Hill, a cadre of current and former chief state school officers is elbowing its way into the nation's education debate at a time when states are taking more control of K-12 education. A little more than a year old, Chiefs for Change is an invitation-only…

This paper is part of a series investigating the implementation of competency education. The purpose of the paper is to explore how districts and schools can redesign grading systems to best help students to excel in academics and to gain the skills that are needed to be successful in college, the community, and the workplace. In order to make the…

Frustrated with years of below-average performance on standardized tests, high dropout rates and a negative image of its schools, the board of education in Maine School Administrative District 11, a 2,200-student school district in central Maine, charged a 15-member committee of educators, school board members and community representatives to…

This document presents a summary of the report, "How Eight State Education Agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region Identify and Support Low-Performing Schools and Districts." This larger report describes and analyzes how eight state education agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New…

This report describes and analyzes how eight state education agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, and Vermont) identify and support low-performing schools and districts under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Data collection for the report…

Given the policy imperative of using multiple measures for state education accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), this study examines similarities and discrepancies between the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and the states' own math assessment results in Kentucky and Maine, with a focus on 3 major academic…

Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator of whether or not the nation's public school system is doing what it is intended to do: enroll, engage, and educate youth to be productive members of society. Since almost 90 percent of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require some postsecondary education, having a high school diploma and the…

As rural states nationwide struggle with cuts in education funding, declining enrollments and increased costs it becomes crucial to examine those schools that are successful in educating their students. These higher performing schools can then be used as models for education excellence throughout the state. Defining higher-performing is not an…

A Web site can be the unifying force among schools with in a district. Many approaches work. Anyone who examines a few school district Web sites will appreciate the variation in content and design each provides. For example, Des Moines Iowa Public Schools, a district in which many in the community speak a second language, provides Web content in…

The author maintains that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 brands good schools with "failing" labels, places the heaviest burdens on states that were already striving to meet challenging education goals, imposes inflexible rules, and fails to make good on promises to pay for programs that would help struggling schools meet the…

For five years running, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) has tracked states' teacher policies, preparing a detailed and thorough compendium of teacher policy in the United States on topics related to teacher preparation, licensure, evaluation, career advancement, tenure, compensation, pensions and dismissal. The "2011 State…