There is a growing call to reconsider current approaches to national and state assessment system policies and practices. State and local education agency leaders, educators, community leaders, and advocates have voiced concerns that current state assessment systems--defined primarily by end-of-year multiple-choice tests--are unable to meet…

The recent wave of new legislation affecting public school teachers has its roots, in part, in the budget shortfalls that have challenged states for the past several years. The first signs of fiscal troubles for many states became evident in 2008, and most instituted midyear budget reductions in 2009. In response, the U.S. Congress passed the…

The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), an organization dedicated to redesigning and expanding school time to improve opportunities and outcomes for high poverty students, and the Education Commission of the States (ECS), with a mission to foster both the exchange of ideas on education issues among the states and long range strategic…

In this article, Kristen L. Buras examines educational policy formation in New Orleans and the racial, economic, and spatial dynamics shaping the city's reconstruction since 2005. More specifically, Buras draws on the critical theories of whiteness as property, accumulation by dispossession, and urban space economy to describe the strategic…

In March 2008, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) launched a competition for states to submit proposals to participate in a Differentiated Accountability Pilot program. The stated aim of the pilots was to allow participating states "to vary the intensity and type of interventions to match the academic reasons that led to a school's…

The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education's online newsletter "The Education Innovator" is to promote innovative practices in education; to offer features on promising programs and practices; to provide information on innovative research, schools, policies, and trends; and to keep readers informed of key Department priorities and…

Concern has grown among black educators about government litigation and administrative proceedings involving state systems of higher education as they relate to equality of educational opportunity. Properly prepared and presented to the courts, these cases can enhance equal educational opportunities by eliminating the continuing effects of past…