There are nearly 1 million credentials in the United States that students and workers can take advantage of, but how information about these credentials is collected and communicated is oftentimes inconsistent and hard to access. In February, we invited a group of postsecondary and workforce development experts to consider how policymakers can…

No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act have made accountability central to conversations about education policy. But neither statute articulates a clear vision of what constitutes "quality" or "equity" in education, nor do they include a mechanism to ensure that schools have sufficient resources to pursue that…

This report explains how State Entity (SE) Program grantees are using or proposed to use the technical assistance (TA) set-aside portion of their Charter School Programs (CSP) funds for these activities. This report also describes SE activities to ensure subgrantees are equipped to meet the needs of all students, and specifically students with…

This paper investigates how accountability pressures under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may have affected students' rate of overweight. Schools facing pressure to improve academic outcomes may reallocate their efforts in ways that have unintended consequences for children's health. To examine the impact of school accountability, we create a unique…

Researchers explored how 13 states in which policymakers have adopted an A-F school letter grade accountability system performed on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) post-policy implementation. Researchers found mixed results, with approximately half of these 13 states increasing achievement post-policy, and the other…

Reflecting post-bureaucratic organisation theory, education reformers intended charter schools to empower school-level leaders, most typically principals, with autonomy to pursue clear, student-centred missions. Yet little research explores whether charter school principals have more power than traditional public school counterparts. We summarise…

A master plan in higher education is developed to address the academic and workforce needs of a particular state. The master plan helps serve as the roadmap for implementation of proposed strategies to reach state goals in education and degree attainment. In Tennessee, Drive to 55 is a state-wide effort to increase the number of Tennesseans with a…

There were a number of historic public charter school policy wins across the country in 2017. Kentucky became the 44th state (along with the District of Columbia) to enact a charter school law. Colorado and Florida provided charter school students with unprecedented access to locally raised dollars for facilities. Tennessee and Texas created new…

Despite the myriad of challenges that families, students, teachers and policymakers faced in 2021, the momentum to transform education did not waver. New opportunities for students unfolded in more than a dozen states through expanded private and public school choice. An additional 1.7 million students gained eligibility for private choice alone,…

The purpose of this study was to examine administrators' use of data, their perceptions of data, and what their expectations were in terms of teacher use of data. In conjunction with this examination will be a closer look at the new Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) to determine the connections as well as the disconnections to…

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education announced the "Raise the Bar: Lead the World" initiative to use decades of research and professional experience to transform public education and advance education equity. There are three focus areas: (1) Achieve Academic Excellence; (2) Boldly Improve Learning Conditions; and (3) Create Pathways…

This study examines the impact of a federal Teacher Incentive Fund grant award that expanded a partnership between Cross County School District and the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET) to create systems that support ongoing, continuous improvement for teachers. Through the implementation of the TAP System for Teacher and…

For many students, developmental education is the largest obstacle to college success, hindering progress before they ever enroll in a college-level course. Postsecondary practitioners and researchers have been re-examining and challenging many traditional elements of developmental education from placement strategies to the sequence of courses…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine teachers and school leaders' experiences using data in the state of Arkansas. Research Design: Initially, an exploratory pilot study was conducted to examine educators' experiences using data within one Arkansas district. This involved focus groups with 24 participants from 10 schools. Data were…

The role of student affairs educators is to ensure that students not only obtain an educational experience, but also that out-of-classroom experiences contribute to holistic development. In particular, student affairs professionals often coordinate residential living, student activities, and advising programs. These programmatic offerings need to…