Since the early 2000s, accountability and evaluation have been regarded by policymakers as key mechanisms for "fixing" teacher education and by many teacher education leaders as vehicles for elevating the status of the profession and uniting a fragmented field. Although educational inequity has been an enduring and endemic problem during…

Federal law defines English learner (EL) eligibility differently for Indigenous, compared to non-Indigenous, students, allowing for broader entry into the EL category, along with its accompanying resources and services. We interviewed EL leaders from 25 state departments of education to learn about their level of understanding of the…

School district boundaries define more than just the area where a certain group of children attends a given set of schools. They also determine the taxing jurisdiction that supports those schools with local property taxes. Big differences in property value can lead to large funding gaps, even between neighboring districts. These disparities in…

Equity and access to advanced learning opportunities have been issues of concern for educators in the field of gifted education for decades. Gifted programs are noted as some of the most segregated learning environments in schools today. This study was designed to investigate how school districts have addressed educational equity through the…

Over the past decade, the Washington State Legislature has made significant progress in juvenile justice reforms. However, these investments have not been balanced by equal changes in education. This report provides 10 recommendations for the Legislature to reform institutional education in Washington focused on the following: (1) An…

In 2013, the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC) proposed as the state goal that 70 percent of the state's 25- to 44-year-olds (i.e., early and mid-career residents) should have a credential beyond high school. WSAC's Strategic Action Plan (SAP) provides a framework to organize the policy and practice innovation needed to achieve this…

As his district's director of equity and strategic engagement, Shomari Jones often hears the stories of the racism Black students and their families experience in schools. As a Black man representing a culturally white district, he is continually reminded of how the suffering of the past has persisted into the present. Jones and Paul Sutton…

Objective/Research Question: The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which programs offering community college baccalaureates (CCBs) address access and equity for underrepresented racial minorities (URMs). The study first aimed to understand how administrators described the purpose of CCBs with regard to advancing equity for URMs.…

One of the first challenges state boards of education faced this spring was what to do for the roughly 3.5 million high school seniors whose graduations were derailed by the coronavirus. Most state policymakers across the country readily suspended end-of-year assessments and granted diplomas to those who were on track to graduate. A few states…

In 2013, the Washington Student Achievement Council proposed a statewide goal for educational attainment that called for 70 percent of the state's 25-44 year olds (i.e., early and mid-career residents) to have a postsecondary credential. The goal was adopted by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee. In 2019, the…

In 2019, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 5082 (SB 5082), which directed the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) to establish a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Committee to build upon the work of the previous Social Emotional Learning Indicators (SELI) Workgroup. The purpose of the SEL Advisory Committee is to promote and…

States and districts allocate hundreds of billions of dollars annually to fund K-12 schools, and this allocation is largely driven by one calculation: how states count student enrollment. They do this in one of five ways: (1) A single count on a single day; (2) Two counts twice per year; (3) Multiple counts over a period of time; (4) An attendance…

This article outlines the efforts toward racial equity undertaken at the system level in Basic Education for Adults (BEdA) programs in Washington state. These Title II Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) programs include both adult basic education and English language acquisition (ABE/ELA) students. The work focuses on the alignment of…

High-quality career and technical education (CTE) programs represent an effective way to provide young adults with an educational experience that prepares them for both college and career success. But not all CTE programs provide accessible pathways to a bounty of educational options without dead ends. To address the false dichotomy--college…

In 2019, the Washington Student Achievement Council adopted a Strategic Framework to better understand how state higher education policy contributes to campus and student success. The framework organizes the policy work into four areas deemed essential to achieve the 70 percent goal: (1) Affordability; (2) Enrollment; (3) Completion; and (4)…