Principals today face greater job complexities and more diverse challenges than ever before because of decreases in resources, funding, and district support, along with increases in accountability expectations, student diversity, and unfunded federal and state mandates. Principals today are tasked with myriad responsibilities ranging from…

School accountability and improvement policy are on the precipice of a paradigm shift. While the multiple-measure dashboard accountability approach holds great promise for promoting more meaningful learning opportunities for all students, our research indicates that this can come with substantial challenges in practice. We reflect upon the lessons…

This research examined how stakeholders (n = 40) from one school district experienced "accountability" within a context where responsibility for student learning was being distributed across the system. Using a case study design, we examined: what conditions supported stakeholders in multiple roles to exercise responsibility for student…

Using a zone of mediation framework, we explore how one school district designed a community-based accountability system (CBAS) reflecting community stakeholders' values, priorities, and goals. We collected rich data sets from a document analysis, focus group, and individual interviews. Our findings indicated a strong dissatisfaction with…

Financial concerns and public scrutiny are causing many educational leaders and community stakeholders to study the district configurations of school corporations, academic preparation, and ideal school size. The purpose of this qualitative case-study research design was to identify and better understand successful small school districts as…

Examining the experiences of families of students with disabilities seeking to exercise school choice is crucial to informing cogent policies and practices that will ensure equitable access. This report explores the perceptions and experiences of families of students with disabilities enrolled in charter and traditional district schools in…

This research aimed to analyze (1) how hard legacy was used to develop a school--namely MIN (Madasah Ibtidaiyah Negeri) Tegalsari, Wlingi sub-district, Blitar Regency--and (2) how soft legacy was applied at the same school. The research took a qualitative approach with a case study design. It was conducted at a madrasa, namely MIN Tegalsari in…

In the United States, long-standing school choice policies and practices in Arizona have developed into a market-based system of schooling for many residents in the state, especially in the larger cities. In this study, I analyze qualitative data gathered from school leaders and parents in one Arizona district public school who discussed marketing…

The Utah State Board of Education (USBE) released a Request for Proposals (RFP) during the summer of 2021 for a firm to support the redesign of Utah's School Accountability System so that it's more aligned with Personalized, Competency-Based Learning and Utah's Portrait of a Graduate, but still simple and transparent. The current Utah School…

Purpose: School district superintendents say politics is the number one factor limiting their performance, yet research provides limited guidance on navigating the political dynamics of district improvement. State takeovers and district-wide turnaround efforts tend to involve particularly heated and polarized debates. Massachusetts' 2012 takeover…

With the passage of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states were required to add a fifth indicator on "School Quality or Student Success" (SQSS) to their school accountability systems. An analysis of submitted ESSA state plans found that 13 states included measures of school climate as their SQSS indicator or incorporated…

Developing and releasing a user-friendly school report card site is a process for ongoing engagement and improvement. This report describes the continuous improvement efforts of three states--Georgia, Illinois, and Virginia--to make their school and district report cards more user-friendly. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has…

We examine the role of ideas in the politics of school choice policy and situate our study within scholarship that understands frames and logics as types of ideas operating in the foreground and background of policy debates. Our data are from a case study of political contention over portfolio management reform (in which a central office oversees…

This document has been conceived to facilitate reflection and guide countries in optimizing the potential of their education policy dialogue and sector coordination mechanisms. It brings into focus the possible core functions of the local education group, the main challenges to realizing these functions and the key principles for ensuring…

The purpose of this study was to identify how one district attempted to meet the need for greater accountability in the teacher evaluation process as mandated by law and to describe strategies that were employed by the district to ensure the integration of student achievement data. This research highlighted how a teacher evaluation instrument…