Emboldened by the provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, state and local education leaders are increasingly interested in redesigning their systems of assessment to further align with college and career readiness and to support meaningful learning for all students. This paper presents stories from three states undertaking this work:…

Emboldened by the provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, state and local education leaders are increasingly interested in redesigning their systems of assessment to further align with college and career readiness and to support meaningful learning for all students. This paper presents stories from three states undertaking this work:…

Teacher effectiveness has been guided by at least three pieces of national legislation, including the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA, 1965), the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, 2009), also referred to as the Stimulus or Recovery Act. With the expectation that the nation's…

This 19th annual edition of "Quality Counts" takes a broad look at the issues and forces shaping the discussion around early-childhood education. It examines how new academic demands and the push for accountability are changing the nature of early-childhood education for school administrators, teachers, and children alike. Reporters…

Municipal leadership can make an enormous difference in expanding the range of high school options and ensuring that more students graduate prepared for work and life. This report draws upon lessons learned from a 2005-07 project on "Helping Municipal Leaders Expand Options and Alternatives for High School," managed by the National…

Technological innovation is driving fundamental changes in all aspects of our lives. This is especially true of digital content, as our use of e-books, downloadable music, streaming television and movies, and online social networks has exploded. However, the explosive growth in our use of digital content seems so far to have eluded many of the 50…

To give states the information they need to sustain hard-fought education reform policy changes effectively, Achieve conducted research on state education reforms that have been sustained successfully for over a decade or more. Funded by the GE Foundation, Achieve hopes this work will help other state leaders, wherever they may be on their road to…

This document explores various issues that affect Texas public school finance. It opens with an overview of the Texas public school system, which comprises 1,043 independent school districts, with an average of 6.4 campuses per district. The federal role in financing schools is examined, along with education finance and the state budget. Four…

Governors and state and local education officials assumed that raising student achievement in the elementary and middle grades would solve the problems with high schools--but it hasn't. Why? Good information is the basis for successful improvement, and high school reform lacks accurate information about what students are to learn and about how…

Texas' Select Committee on Public Education, created in 1983 by resolution of the Texas Legislature, was directed "to study the issues and continuing concerns relating to public education in Texas, particularly school finance and each of its components." The committee's recommendations, presented in this report, are intended to provide…

Reviews precedents, at the state level, to the movement for education reform. Reports, by year and state, on first reactions to reform. Outlines topics touched by state reform efforts, summarizes unifying themes, and predicts the future of reform. Includes a table of states requiring testing for initial certification of teachers. (IW)