Most state boards of education create or collaborate on strategic plans to crystallize a vision, goals, and strategies for public education. These plans often include long-run goals around postsecondary readiness, high-quality educators, and student academic achievement. Many of the newest plans, however, diverge from preceding ones by addressing…

The modest impact of national policy efforts on school digitalisation relates to a gap between views among policy-makers and practitioners, giving rise to complexity in translating policy into action. Acknowledging changes in governing through alternative policy formation-processes, and Ward and Parr's (2011) arguing for the importance of…

The state of Texas requires that each district and campus write an annual improvement plan (Texas Education Code, n.d.b). Although this study was conducted in Texas concerning Texas districts and campuses, it would be reasonable to assume that most, if not all, of the other states in the U.S. have similar improvement planning processes. The…

Scholars have advocated for student voice and participation across curriculum design, assessment planning, and policymaking in higher education to advance and achieve equity (Montenegro and Jankowski 2020; Jankowski and Bheda 2022; Damiano 2018). However, the reality seems far different from the intention or aspiration, primarily because explicit…

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has been a leader in the field of social and emotional learning (SEL) for over two decades. CASEL collaborates with thought leaders to equip educators, policymakers, and researchers with the knowledge and resources to make evidence-based SEL an integral part of equitable…

This 2022 Education Sector Analysis (ESA) is the second ESA report that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education of the Federal Government of Somalia has produced since 2012. The report presents key education indicators across the various sub-sectors and provides an evidence base for the identification of policy priority areas and…

COL's mission is to help governments, institutions and organisations expand the scale, efficiency and quality of learning by using appropriate open, distance and technology-based approaches. In 2021-2027, COL will: i) build on its expertise in ODL, OER and TEL to play a more influential role in national policy development and implementation; ii)…

This article addresses how European policy initiatives in higher education, research and innovation are diffused in the European higher education research and education area. Based on an instrumental and an institutional perspective, specific expectations are developed as to how policy diffusion might unfold, and, through an in-depth analysis of…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reverses a trend toward centralization of education policy and instead provides greater authority to the states. This study explores states' interpretation and early implementation of ESSA's equity-related provisions. Using a qualitative case study approach, we find wide variation in the design and…

Large-scale learning assessments can be used to generate performance and contextual data on student learning outcomes. The UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) has conducted a qualitative study to explore both how and why learning assessment data are used in six sub-Saharan African countries. This Information Sheet…

Propelled by many factors, including a newly appointed Board of Trustees responsible for governance of our university, resource shortages, and enrollment swings, Portland State University embarked on a strategic planning effort in 2014 with the intent of reunifying a divided campus and creating a bold vision for moving forward in the next five…

School closures, inequitable technology, and diminished access to educational support negatively impacted learning for all students during the COVID-19 pandemic but more so for students with disabilities. In anticipation of learning loss for all students, the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) mandated each school district to develop an…

Agent-based models combine data and theory during both development and use of the model. As models have become increasingly data driven, it is easy to start thinking of agent-based modelling as an empirical method, akin to statistical modelling, and reduce the role of theory. We argue that both types of information are important where the past is…

Although the number of countries conducting large-scale assessments has increased significantly over the past two decades, this has not necessarily led to the effective use of learning assessment data in policy-making and planning. To better understand the reasons for this, the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP)…

Louisiana has received recent attention for some of its new education policies and promising early results. In this report, RAND researchers provide an in-depth description of Louisiana's approach to improving student outcomes since 2012. The authors examine how the state has used various policy levers -- including mandates, resource alignment,…