The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) invited states to use multiple measures of "higher-order thinking skills and understanding," including "extended-performance tasks," to create state assessment systems that support teaching for deeper learning. However, few states have been able to navigate federal assessment requirements…

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…

Mexico's implementation of mandatory teacher assessments in 2013 was part of a group of federal reforms aimed at enhancing the quality of state-run education. The reforms elicited strong opposition from key stakeholders. Building on the idea that policy capacities are the set of capabilities necessary to perform policy functions, we examine the…

Investing in community colleges is a central part of the Biden administration's education agenda, with the goal of strengthening America's middle class and opening the benefits of education to all Americans. CCRC has conducted 25 years of research on how community colleges can more effectively educate students and set them up to successfully…

Over the last decade and a half, during a period defined in the public consciousness by political partisanship, the legislative and executive branches have quietly forged a bipartisan consensus around the need to build evidence of effectiveness that would ensure high rates of return on investment for the nation's social programs. The establishment…

For more than a century, public education in the U.S. has been defined as schools that are funded, regulated, and exclusively delivered by government. The past 25 years have brought some diversified forms of delivery through charter schools and various private-school scholarship mechanisms. Nevertheless, most discussions and debates over school…

As schools across the country prepare for new standards under the Common Core, states are moving toward creating more aligned systems of assessment and accountability. This paper recommends an accountability approach that focuses on meaningful learning, enabled by professionally skilled and committed educators, and supported by adequate and…

This article critiques the report of President Obama's taskforce on educational technology, "Transforming American Education". It calls into question the claims of the authors that the proposed policy is "revolutionary", and then offers a point-by-point comparison between the report's recommendations and those derived from a perspective taking…

This study focused on the federal and Illinois State the reform legislation titled the Performance Evaluation Reform Act and Senate Bill 7. The Performance Evaluation Reform Act or "PERA" was created from collaboration between stakeholders as Illinois competed in a federal competition titled "Race to the Top." The legislation…

As Secretary Arne Duncan recognizes, turning around schools that are not doing well is a formidable task. It is also a task about which many ambiguities and controversies swirl. Given all the uncertainties associated with turning around, transforming, and continuously improving schools, it is essential to keep analyzing deficiencies in blueprints…

There is a mounting body of research demonstrating the impact of early learning on lifelong success. The quality of early child care is the most consistent predictor of young children's behavior, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Childcare Research Network. Children who receive high-quality child care…

During the last several decades, educational reform in Sweden has been at once contentious, fast paced, and uneven as control of Parliament and educational policy shifted between left- and right-wing political factions. These political power shifts within Parliament created tension between national and local municipal governments and provoked…

A large majority of full-time students pursuing bachelor's degrees at four-year colleges and universities in the United States attend public universities. The struggle, therefore, to improve educational attainment and reduce the marked disparities in outcomes that lead to greater inequalities of all kinds will take place mainly within our nation's…

In this paper, the Arne Duncan, the United States Secretary of Education, discusses the need for a sea change in America's schools of education, and focuses on the need to improve teacher preparation programs. Many schools of education have provided high-quality preparation programs for aspiring teachers for years. In the last decade, many…

In too many communities, child care, health care, and other family supports and services are rarely coordinated and are too frequently determined by where families live, their level of income, and their community connections. Policy initiatives at the local, state, and federal level influence how communities are able to develop more…