Grantmakers for Education's "Trends in Education Philanthropy: Benchmarking 2018-19" report offers insights on the current and evolving priorities of the education funding community. It can help funders to understand their role in supporting education innovation and identify future priorities that hold the greatest promise for benefiting…

How can local education agencies (LEAs), elementary schools, and teachers make sure the kindergarten year deepens and builds on children's previous learning? What are the best ways to keep children and families connected to school and engaged in learning? And how can LEAs, schools, and classroom teachers provide the smoothest transition possible…

At a time when democracy is fractured along the fault lines of race, ethnicity, and religion, and when social mobility has stalled, high-quality integrated public schools could take us on a better path forward. Racial and socioeconomic school integration has proven to be one of the most powerful strategies known to educators to improve the lives…

American public schools today are perhaps more linguistically and culturally diverse than at any other point in American history. Nearly one in ten U.S. students is currently classified as an English learner (EL). This report explores the intersection between ELs and charter schools and provides ideas for helping policymakers use charters as…

A great education is the key to unlocking personal potential to succeed in careers and to lead a meaningful life. Accordingly, education is best addressed by those closest to students--parents and teachers. The proper Federal role in education should be to come alongside teachers, parents, and students in ensuring every student has opportunities…

Today's education landscape, including how students experience school, can reflect pervasive educational inequities. Past federal administrations and congresses, recognizing their critical role in addressing inequality, often acted to address disparities and violations of students' civil rights that had been left unresolved by states and…

Background: Limiting food and beverage marketing to children is a promising approach to influence children's nutrition behavior. School-based marketing influences nutrition behavior and studies have consistently found marketing for nonnutritious foods and beverages in schools. No studies have examined the resources necessary to align school…

Performance measurement has emerged as a management tool that, accompanied by advances in technology and data analysis, has allowed public officials to control public policy at multiple levels of government. In the United States, the federal government has used performance measurement as part of an accountability strategy that enables Congress and…

Low-income parents of infants and toddlers should have access to affordable education and training to improve their employment opportunities. Parents' education is one of the strongest, most consistent predictors of children's health, development, and achievement over time. Parents' education levels affect how they seek, understand, and use…

Early childhood has always been the most critical developmental period of the life cycle. Yet for most of history, that essential early foundation for all subsequent learning and development was laid in the home, largely through full-time maternal care. Today, though, an unprecedented number of American mothers are in the workforce. Almost…

Federal education policy reports in science and mathematics education have treated Students of Color consistently over the past two decades, addressing the underrepresentation of minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields with little regard to actual issues of race and ethnicity. We examine how 17 federal…

Who uses student data? is an infographic created by the Data Quality Campaign. (Used with permission) It answers important privacy-related questions about who collects, uses, and distributes student data. Most personal student information stays local. Districts, states, and the federal government all collect data about students for important…

The Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is one of the most important financial institutions in the world. As the central bank of the United States, it influences the domestic money supply, credit, and interest rates with the goal of achieving stable prices and full employment for the world's largest economy. It provides a variety of services to…

Over the course of our nation's existence, the federal role in K-12 education has evolved many times. From an initial limited role to one that is more focused today on access and equity, the federal role in education policy has seldom been without controversy. During each twist and turn there has been ongoing debate over federal versus state…

This Issue Brief reviews general state practices to maintain safe schools and federal education programs that fund and shape some local school practices. Re-examining how school safety initiatives are implemented in states suggests the need for increased collaboration among states and new flexibility for states when it comes to the use of existing…