Last spring's sudden shift to remote learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted K-12 education in an unprecedented way. Upon Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's waiver of federally mandated state testing for spring 2020, it also triggered the first nationwide break in state testing in half a century. With students returning to school…

Improving public education has long been a cornerstone of the Democratic platform. Because progressives understand that access to a quality education is the gateway to a better life, their decades-long struggle to promote equal rights and opportunity for all Americans has been deeply tied to their struggle to create an effective public school…

This contribution takes a critical perspective on digital school performance platforms (SPP), which today play a key role in US state education monitoring and accountability. Using examples from two different US state education agencies, I provide an analytical disentanglement of some key dimensions of such platforms' enactment and materiality. I…

For much of the last two decades, beginning with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, the top political leaders have shown concern about children stuck in failing public schools. NCLB required districts to do something -- not enough, but something -- about those schools. Millions of children still languish in low-performing schools,…

School districts across the country have long been finding ways to give greater autonomy to schools, theorizing that providing school leaders with authority over the decisions that most directly affect their students will enable them to better meet students' needs and, in turn, improve student outcomes. Charter schools, which are public schools…

Policymakers and researchers often talk about "autonomous schools" as if there's a single, agreed-upon definition of what that means. In reality, there's no standard design for autonomous school policies, and school autonomy can mean a lot of different things. The policies that states have enacted vary widely in terms of their goals, the…

Policymakers and researchers often talk about "autonomous schools" as if there's a single, agreed-upon definition of what that means. In reality, there's no standard design for autonomous school policies, and school autonomy can mean a lot of different things. The policies that states have enacted vary widely in terms of their goals, the…

Purpose: School district superintendents say politics is the number one factor limiting their performance, yet research provides limited guidance on navigating the political dynamics of district improvement. State takeovers and district-wide turnaround efforts tend to involve particularly heated and polarized debates. Massachusetts' 2012 takeover…

About 13 percent of children aged 3 through 21 enrolled in public schools received special education services in school year 2015-16, and about 3 percent of children from birth through age 2 received special education services. Concerns about the difficulties identifying and evaluating children for special education have been raised by the media,…

There is a faltering sense of democracy in America's current political climate due to polarized opinions about leadership's decisions and antagonistic political parties. John Dewey (1916) proposed that education is the place to foster democracy, as schools can provide a platform to actively engage students in authentic democratic experiences that…

Discussion of alternative education is growing across the country as states and districts look for ways to better serve students whose needs are not met in traditional high school settings. Alternative settings, however, vary greatly in how they operate, whom they aim to enroll, and the methods they use to educate students. The variation of…

Although parent involvement is a cornerstone of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), few individual parents of children with disabilities participate in civic engagement to voice their suggestions for the next IDEA reauthorization. To address this gap, a civic engagement training was conducted with 95 parents of children with…

School accountability systems in the United States have been criticized on a number of fronts, mainly on grounds of completeness and fairness. This study examines an alternative school quality framework--one that seemingly responds to several core critiques of present accountability systems. Examining results from a pilot study in a diverse urban…

The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) grants states more authority over their school accountability systems than did No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Hence, states have an opportunity to design improved school rating systems. Three of the most important improvements that states can make are to ensure that their accountability systems: (1)…

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)…