The Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) accredits all public schools in the state through the Kansas Education System of Accreditation (KESA). KESA is designed to evaluate at a system level, meaning school districts, a system of schools, or an independent school not affiliated with a school district. District leaders have been frustrated…

In 2022, Tennessee overhauled its education funding formula to improve outcomes for the 1 million students in the state. The Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement Act (TISA) was designed to simplify the existing funding formula and more equitably allocate resources to schools. Bellwether's case study, "After the Policy Win: First-Year…

School accountability systems can serve many purposes, including sharing information, measuring progress toward state and local goals, and supporting greater educational equity. Given the important role accountability systems play in states' education systems, states have taken the opportunity provided by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to…

This report presents information about the Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, including information about courses, examinations, and examination fees. The report also discusses the Texas AP Incentive Program, Texas policy related to uses of AP and IB examination results, and data sources and methodological…

While researchers have shown great interest in understanding teacher evaluation, little is known about how teachers' actions and interactions surrounding evaluation affect the dual goals of evaluation--accountability and development. Using data collected during a yearlong ethnographic study at three schools (combined with follow-up interviews four…

Federal law requires states to develop systems to hold K-12 schools accountable for the outcomes of all students. This includes using data to illuminate how historically marginalized groups of students, including English Learners (ELs), are disadvantaged by systems that fail to meet their distinct needs. But for this to be useful for school…

When the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA) was signed into law in 2015, it was hailed as a significant step forward for English Learner (EL) students. The law aimed to raise the profile of accountability for ELs, including in terms of their progress towards English proficiency and their performance in academic subjects. More than four…

The call for more expansive access to bilingual education is grounded in a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on the benefits of bilingual education, bilingualism, and biliteracy for students and the larger social fabric. Many studies find that access to bilingual education programs has a medium to large positive impact on students' academic…

This article explores the associations between the achievement of economically disadvantaged students and the presence of state policies that include student achievement in teacher evaluations. We looked at student achievement across all 50 states from 2007 through 2013. A simple comparison of states with and without the policy suggested that…

The Migration Policy Institute has produced a set of fact sheets providing an overview of key characteristics of the foreign-born and English Learner (EL) populations in select states. It aims to build understanding of state demographic contexts, how ELs are performing in K-12 schools, and the basics of state policies for EL education under the…

When the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress was released earlier this year, most states learned that their average scores in grades 4 and 8 reading and mathematics remained relatively flat since 2015. More troubling though, students performing at the lowest 10th and 25th percentiles saw a decline in their scores. To confront this…

In "Absent from School," Gottfried and Hutt offer a comprehensive and timely resource for educators and policy makers seeking to understand the scope, impact, and causes of chronic student absenteeism. The editors present a series of studies by leading researchers from a variety of disciplines that address which students are missing…

School ratings are a ubiquitous feature of the U.S. educational system. Alongside state-mandated measures of school performance, non-state organizations such as GreatSchools.org and Niche have created consumer-oriented systems of school ratings that draw on publicly available information about schools. Claiming the purpose of their rating systems…

The call for more expansive access to bilingual education is grounded in a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on the benefits of bilingual education, bilingualism, and biliteracy for students and the larger social fabric. Many studies find that access to bilingual education programs has a medium to large positive impact on students' academic…

Educational quality is a way to influence the future of the American economy (Hanushek, 1986). Large-scale assessments are designed to determine quality in education by measuring student achievement. A connection exists between the standards, teachers, and assessments that form a system of accountability within education. State and national…