The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Fair & Effective Education Policy." Contents include: (1) What Students…

Turning around low-performing schools is hard. Strategies financed by federal dollars have shown disappointing results, and states have avoided fundamental reforms even as they hired specialists and retrained school staff. State leaders can adopt or adapt three approaches already in use if they want to go beyond cosmetic remedies for troubled…

The Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010 defines major management challenges as programs or management functions that are vulnerable to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, and where a failure to perform well could seriously affect the ability of the U.S. Department of Education (Department) to achieve its mission or…

Education is the bedrock of an informed democracy and the bridge to lifelong learning. To ensure that every Texan reaches their full potential, it's important that all families have access to high-quality education--regardless of their ZIP code. However, efforts to expand educational options for Texas families in the form of charter schools have…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Keeping the Public in Public Education." Contents include: (1) Texas Must…

The charter school model differs fundamentally from the district-based model of public education delivery that is still dominant in every state. Instead of creating government bodies that directly operate all of an area's public schools, the state approves entities that authorize and oversee schools run by nonprofit organizations. In this article,…

The new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), gives states the opportunity to rethink their K-12 accountability systems. Gone are No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) tight rules for assessing and intervening in schools and districts. This could not come at a better time for urban schooling. Urban districts operate in a very…

The Recovery School District (RSD) was created by Louisiana legislators in 2003 for the purpose of transforming schools with a history of failure by placing them under state control and oversight. The RSD's scope was expanded in 2005 to allow it to take over the lowest performing schools in Louisiana. This had its most profound impact on New…

School choice programs such as vouchers and charter schools expand lower cost schooling options for families. We examine how these expansions affect the prevalence of homeschooling. School choice programs may reduce homeschooling if parents that otherwise would have homeschooled their children instead use a school choice program. Homeschooling may…

Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane have gathered a diverse group of scholars to examine the shifting federal role in education across the presidential administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. While the administrations were vastly different, one thing remained constant: an ongoing and significant expansion of the federal role in…

New York City has the largest public school district in the U.S., but the city's diverse educational landscape also includes charter, private, and religious schools, all of which have undergone a major transformation in the two years since the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last two school years, overall school enrollment in the city was down by…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and implementing regulations maintain requirements for State educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs) to prepare and disseminate report cards that provide information on State, LEA, and school performance and…

The National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL), an organization dedicated to redesigning and expanding school time to improve opportunities and outcomes for high-poverty students, has again teamed up with the Education Commission of the States (ECS), whose mission it is to foster the exchange of ideas on education issues among the states, to…

At the turn of the century, the United States was trying to come to grips with a serious education crisis. The country was lagging behind its international peers, and a half-century effort to erode racial disparities in school achievement had made little headway. Many people expected action from the federal government. George W. Bush and Barack…

This hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions examines No Child Left Behind, focusing on innovation to better meet the needs of students. The questions addressed are: (1) What is your State, district, or school doing to implement innovative approaches to improve academic outcomes for students, particularly low-income and…