This study examined why schools and districts transitioned from traditional education systems to competency-based, the challenges and benefits school experienced, and characteristics needed in a leader for the shift in education. The study used a quantitative approach informed by survey and correlational research. The participants in this study…

K-12 public education is a state responsibility and a federal interest, which means that state lawmakers have the primary responsibility for adopting and revising the laws governing public schools as well as scholarships, education savings accounts, and other private learning options. State officials also have significant authority over the laws…

Teacher occupational burnout has been a long-standing problem for K-12 educators. COVID-19 further exacerbated this dilemma as school districts nationwide tried to solve the crisis and provide quality education to students nationally. The international health scare created an atmosphere of stress, confusion, and emotional and physical trauma…

Microschools, small schools that educate five to 15 students, have been among the most interesting recent developments in the K-12 reform world. Neither homeschooling nor traditional schooling, they exist in a hard-to-classify space between formal and informal learning environments. One of the most prominent microschooling networks, Prenda, was…

With the 2022 midterm elections behind us and 2023 state legislative sessions ahead, policymakers must shift their time and attention from winning reelection to addressing the perfect storm brewing in education. Three significant challenges paint a grim picture for students and public schools unless policymakers step in to help: catastrophic…

This paper draws on the concepts of settled expectations and the educational racial contract to provide an analysis of the current social movements calling for the improvement of teacher salaries and work conditions in K-12 schools. This paper argues that some teacher unions' lack of centering race in their advocacy to ameliorate educational…

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,…

State policymakers are in a unique position to enable the innovations in education necessary to prepare students for a rapidly changing world. Working with 8,000 educators nationwide, the Aurora Institute identified the top 10 issues to address in state policy for transforming the K-12 education system: (1) Profile of a Graduate; (2) Innovation…

During the spring of 2020, school districts across the United States were required to shift to distance learning modalities due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic forced schools to close their doors to face-to-face instruction and quickly shift to an online format. While online education is prevalent in the United States, it only serves about…

After eighteen months of school closure and disrupted learning, civic leaders, researchers, and educational leaders are getting a clearer picture of how students fared through the pandemic, and what new reality school systems face as they return to in-person schooling in 2021-22. Increases in community infection rates and parent hesitancy have…

When the nation shut down in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, states had to figure out what education would look like for the remainder of the academic year. These abrupt changes affected not only students' ability to learn but also their access to the support system that would help prepare them for steps beyond high school. This Policy…

To innovate for the future and improve equity, while also protecting foundational and proven principles that support high-quality education, ExcelinEd is committing to 5 goals over 5 years to impact 5 million students. Those goals hold the key to impactful and far-reaching changes in education, with the power to transform schools, students' lives,…

While top down federal policy processes continue to deliver policy as grand solutions to real and imagined problems within the nation's public schools, states continue to churn out their own layers of educational accountability policy. But it is no secret that state and federal policies and programs like No Child Left Behind and Reading First have…

A full year of progress in advancing education reform across America is documented in each of the Foundation for Excellence in Education's Annual Reports. This report presents the broad range of initiatives that the Foundation for Excellence in Education is working on--policies that personalize the learning experience for students, that challenge…

In 2006, Arizona ELL Task Force implemented Structured English Immersion (SEI) within its public schools to educate emergent bilingual (EB) students. Although prior research has demonstrated limitations of SEI, we investigate whether institutionalization has improved its implementation and outcomes using coordinators' and teachers' responses from…