The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed the way that families and policymakers view K-12 education. Learning loss is having an outsized impact on students who were furthest from opportunity before the pandemic. And families are increasingly looking for new educational options for their children. For decades, access to educational options…

Homeschooling has witnessed an upsurge in the United States since the movement for school choice gained momentum in the 1990s. Most research on homeschooling has been on non-representative samples of median-income white Americans, making it difficult for policymakers to accept its reliability. In addition, homeschoolers now include other ethnic…

The COVID-19 pandemic has put virtual schooling at the forefront of policy concerns, as millions of children worldwide shift to virtual schooling with hopes of "slowing the spread". Given the emergency shift to online education coupled with the large increase in demand for virtual education over the last decade it is imperative to…

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,…

The Committee on Education and Labor met to hear testimony on "Examining the Policies and Priorities of the United States Department of Education." The U.S. Department of Education was making a budget request for Fiscal Year 2022 and the Committee wanted to examine the Department's priorities to support students, educators, and…

Focused on educational quality, innovation and opportunity--both within and outside of the traditional system--ExcelinEd advances a broad range of student-centered policy solutions that are successfully: (1) increasing student learning; (2) Readying graduates for college and career; and (3) Advancing equity. This year's annual report highlights…

In "Redefining the School District in America," Nelson Smith reexamines existing recovery school districts (RSDs)--entities in Louisiana, Tennessee, and Michigan charged with running and turning around their state's worst schools--and assembles the most comprehensive catalog of similar initiatives underway and under consideration…

Each year, governors take the stage to highlight accomplishments and outline policy priorities for their states. In an effort to provide up-to-date information on education policy trends, Education Commission of the States tracks all education policy proposals and accomplishments featured by governors in these State of the State addresses. At the…

School choice improves parents' satisfaction with their children's schools, and public schools that face competition have shown improved performance, yet opponents continue to oppose reforms that give parents the opportunity to choose their children's schools. State and federal policymakers should reform existing education policies to give all…

This study documents the public costs of high school dropouts in Georgia, and examines how policies that increase school choice, such as the recently-enacted tuition tax credit scholarship program will provide large public benefits by increasing public school graduation rates. The study calculates the annual cost of Georgia dropouts caused by…

The present article, a cross-case analysis, analyzes one aspect of the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that has generated conflict between the U.S. Department of Education and the federal court system. The conflicts arose between the courts' oversight of desegregation and the implementation of the public school choice…

Discusses the efforts of Troup County (Georgia) to restructure their schools and curriculum to provide all students with an equal education without resorting to tracking or heterogeneous grouping practices. Five main strategies are discussed: reorganization of curriculum and grouping in each school; professional development; developing a Magnet…

Sixteen pieces of legislation affecting public education in Georgia were passed by the General Assembly in the 1997 session. Eleven of the 16 are notable, and are discussed in this article. They include: (1) House Bill 567, the School Safety Act of 1997, which makes juvenile court records available to the schools and establishes alternative…

The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998 requires that workforce investment areas establish individual training accounts (ITAs) that provide vouchers customers can use to pay for training. The United States Department of Labor is supporting the ITA experiment, during which new customers determined to be eligible for training will be randomly…