The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) invited states to use multiple measures of "higher-order thinking skills and understanding," including "extended-performance tasks," to create state assessment systems that support teaching for deeper learning. However, few states have been able to navigate federal assessment requirements…

There is a growing call to reconsider current approaches to national and state assessment system policies and practices. State and local education agency leaders, educators, community leaders, and advocates have voiced concerns that current state assessment systems--defined primarily by end-of-year multiple-choice tests--are unable to meet…

Student, family, and community engagement is an important ingredient to foster students' social, emotional, and academic development (SEAD). In this brief, the importance and impact of meaningful engagement--building personal relationships, trust, and mutual respect between students and their educators, families, and communities--is described, and…

In this report, the authors tally the cost of child care and the price of attending a public four-year college--including tuition and fees, housing, food, books, and transportation--to determine a student parent's actual annual cost of pursuing a degree. That number is used to calculate the "student parent affordability gap," that is,…

In March 2019, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a proposal to establish a new, nationwide federal tax-credit scholarship program. Representative Bradley Byrne (R-AL) introduced a companion proposal in the House. Although Congress' support of school choice is praiseworthy, a federal tax-credit scholarship program poses a threat to education…

In fall 2020, parents found new ways to help their children learn amid uncertain school-district plans for school re-openings. The defining feature of the new education landscape emerging from the pandemic is that many families are no longer waiting for school-district solutions, and are giving themselves permission to choose how and where their…

Mexico's implementation of mandatory teacher assessments in 2013 was part of a group of federal reforms aimed at enhancing the quality of state-run education. The reforms elicited strong opposition from key stakeholders. Building on the idea that policy capacities are the set of capabilities necessary to perform policy functions, we examine the…

The Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) program was launched as an effort to address the loss of access to free and reduced-price school meals due to widespread school closures at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As schools reopened in a shifting mix of fully virtual, hybrid, and in-person formats and families lacked consistent access…

This paper examines the United States federal and state educational responses to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as states' plans for reopening schools. The virus entered the United States in January 2020. As the virus spread, most school districts began to close in March. At the end of June, the United States has experienced the…

When the novel coronavirus forced school buildings to close, causing a massive disruption in the delivery of these services, it exposed the extent to which schools function as an essential component of a comprehensive health system, particularly for children in low-income communities. In response to the closures, state and federal decision-makers…

Nationally, student debt has doubled between 2009 and 2019 and is now hovering around $1.7 trillion. The impact that student debt financing is having on borrowers of color is harmful and unsustainable. It is also widening the already significant racial wealth gap. The pandemic is likely to only exacerbate these inequities as people of color and…

For more than a century, public education in the U.S. has been defined as schools that are funded, regulated, and exclusively delivered by government. The past 25 years have brought some diversified forms of delivery through charter schools and various private-school scholarship mechanisms. Nevertheless, most discussions and debates over school…

Education is primary a state and local responsibility in the United States. It is states and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation. The appropriate roles for state in the education of all children…

Migration over the U.S. southwest border in the past decade has been composed of growing numbers of undocumented and asylum-seeking families and children from Mexico and Central America, with larger increases starting in fiscal year (FY) 2017. By U.S. law, states must provide education to all children, regardless of immigration status. Yet…

The issue of student retention and graduation from postsecondary institutions has grown in stature over the past decade. While the last 40 years of federal and state policies have focused largely on access to college, there is now a very real interest in not only getting students into college but also helping them earn baccalaureate and other…