In every classroom across our great state--from Monroe to Manistee and Mt. Pleasant to Marquette--every Michigan student deserves access and opportunity to the educational resources and support to realize a bright future. Yet for too long, Michigan's education system has served as an engine of inequality when it should be providing opportunities…

In 1993, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts dramatically overhauled its K-12 education system and created a new school finance formula, building an educational accountability structure to ensure every child has access to a high-quality education. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA) established academic standards in core subjects, mandated…

Students with disabilities need quality education to develop their skills and reach their full potential. However, according to the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in its 2021 report, more than half of the 50 states and the District of Columbia did not meet the requirements or purposes of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)…

Region 14 Comprehensive Center and the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) are collaboratively implementing projects to address high leverage problems such as student access to effective educators, supporting schools serving specific student populations, and building school district capacity to design school models aligned to parent choice.…

This paper describes progress, challenges and opportunities of using policy to advance educational equity and excellence at scale in the United States. It begins with a look-back that examines two key elements of the standards-based education (SBE) era: First, it traces policy shifts and implementation challenges of the SBE era. Second, it…

In this article, the first of a two-part presentation, the author advocates for healthy communities, families, and schools, as well as for changes in housing patterns. Part Two will appear in the October 2019 issue of the Record.

This is the latest edition of Education Week's Chance-for-Success Index. Launched in 2007, it surveys a range of social and educational conditions that, taken together, affect a person's prospect of positive outcomes over the course of a lifetime. Articles in this issue include: (1) States Confront Challenges In Educational Landscape (Sterling…

As the 2020-21 school year opens amid the COVID-19 pandemic's disruption, this third and final installment of Quality Counts 2020 delivers a data-driven portrait of the nation's school system along with A-F grades and rankings for each state on a wide range of academic, school finance, and socioeconomic indicators. This report also includes an…

The public education system in Massachusetts enjoys a reputation of being "first" in the nation. This ranking is owed, in full or in part, to the performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments. NAEP is also called "The Nation's Report Card," as it is designed to discern trends in state…

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic upended the US K-12 education system, exacerbated pre-existing challenges around student achievement, and created new obstacles to delivering high-quality learning for all students. Concerns for the US education system were increasing prior to the pandemic as academic achievement and school reforms struggled…

Educational quality is a way to influence the future of the American economy (Hanushek, 1986). Large-scale assessments are designed to determine quality in education by measuring student achievement. A connection exists between the standards, teachers, and assessments that form a system of accountability within education. State and national…

Stagnation or promise? The third and final installment of "Quality Counts 2019" offers evidence for both in an annual summing up of the nation's K-12 system. The Education Week Research Center analyzed dozens of factors ranging from the academic to the socioeconomic in coming up with its all-inclusive state rankings and A-F grades. The…

New data and analysis from the National Council on Teacher Quality finds significant progress on the science of reading instruction in teacher preparation. For the first time since NCTQ began publishing program ratings in its 2013 Teacher Prep Review, the number of programs in the nation to embrace reading science has crossed the halfway mark,…

In the past 15 years, four-year-olds' enrollment in state-funded pre-kindergarten in the United States has doubled, and advocates have pushed for further expansion. Although research has shown that pre-K programs can have important benefits, most existing studies have focused on small or state-specific programs that may not generalize to other…

In 2016 the state of Massachusetts began a process to end the confusing series of alterations to education by revising and aligning the state's academic standards and tests. In March 2017 the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approved revisions to the state English language arts (ELA) and math standards. The purpose of this report…