The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, requires that states develop and submit a State Plan to the U.S. Department of Education. To ensure a solid foundation for State Plan development and further stakeholder engagement, the Pennsylvania Department of Education asked AIR summarize ...
During a period of four years, Say Yes to Education developed data resources and tools reflecting a commitment, as part of a community-based reform initiative (Say Yes Syracuse), to identify needs, monitor implementation, certify results, provide transparency and engage stakeholders. This paper reviews the program and describes lessons learned. ...
The initiatives to enhance adult learning program accountability and assessment systems of the following states are described in this paper: Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Oregon, Texas, Washington, West Virginia.
Over the past decade, a number of reform efforts have aimed at reducing the size of the learning communities in the nation’s schools. This paper describes the framework underlying our evaluation design of a large-scale, multifaceted school reform initiative and identifies some of the methodological challenges inherent in work of ...
Building on existing external school support literature, this brief offers a set of indicators for assessing the quality of support provided to low-performing schools, with respect to the No Child Left Behind Act.
With Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s announcement of the Excellent Educators for All initiative earlier this month, putting excellent principals at the helm of high-need schools remains critical. To better prepare the new principals, Aaron Butler contends in this blog post, state- and district-level leaders should make leadership development and coaching ...
This fourth and final brief in the California Collaborative on District Reform series examines how the Fresno-Long Beach Learning Partnership uses data to inform work across and within the districts. The Partnership is a collaboration that aims to improve student outcomes, accelerate achievement for all students, and close achievement gaps ...
This brief uses the experience of eight California school districts—all members of the California Collaborative on District Reform—to suggest a more systemic approach to school turnaround.
Our nation’s lowest performing schools have traditionally struggled to offer students the instruction and supports they deeply need. The first phase of the federal School Improvement Grant Program targeted the goal of turning around these schools and improving learning for students. This report examines the first year of SIG implementation ...
Starting in January, the GED got a lot harder; while the overhaul makes sense, doing well now requires a new level of help that too few studying for it can get. In this blog post, Terry Salinger points to the need for adult charter schools and wraparound services to address ...