An increasing number of students now have access to Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), a policy reform that puts education funds directly in families’ hands to use at the school or education provider of their choice. A new report from Patrick Graff of the American Enterprise Institute argues that teachers deserve similar support and flexibility through Read more about Teacher Spending Accounts: Supporting All Teachers[…]
A recent piece by Kevin Mahnken in The 74 summarizes recent developments that mean more funding for R&D in education. A recently passed $1.7 trillion federal omnibus package includes a $70 million boost to the Institute for Education Sciences (IES), the Department of Education’s arm for statistics, research, and evaluation. Within that 9.6% bump, $40 Read more about Federal Omnibus Bill Includes Substantial New Funds for Education Research[…]
A joint report by researchers from the Albert Shanker Institute and Rutgers University Graduate School of Education finds that high-poverty districts and students of color suffer from K-12 funding that is, on average, well below estimated adequate levels, while low-poverty districts and white students enjoy funding that far exceeds adequate levels. The authors also find Read more about The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems, 4th edition[…]
In the New York Times newsletter, David Leonhardt works against bad-news bias and covers a positive and mostly overlooked trend in American education: the educational progress of the 1990s and early 2000s. Excerpts of the piece appear below: For years, you’ve probably been hearing that our schools are in crisis. And K-12 education in the Read more about Learning More: Why did U.S. schools make so much progress in the 1990s and early 2000s?[…]
While investing in the teacher workforce is central to improving schools, school resources are notoriously limited, forcing school leaders to make difficult decisions on how to prioritize funds. A new paper from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University examines a critical input to resource allocation decisions: teacher preferences. Using an original, online discrete choice survey Read more about Investing in the Teacher Workforce: Experimental Evidence on Teachers’ Preferences[…]
Education First recently organized a Residency Sustainability Webinar Series to spotlight successful approaches teacher preparation programs and districts have used to develop and implement high-quality, sustainable and affordable teacher residencies. They identified promising innovative staffing strategies from both the series and the broader field in their latest paper, Innovative Staffing Models to Sustain Teacher Residencies. Read more about Innovative Staffing Models to Sustain Teacher Residencies[…]
The Council of the Great City Schools has released a blueprint to help urban school districts spend new Covid-19 federal dollars strategically and effectively. It sets out overarching goals for the use of funds; articulates broad investment strategies; defines principles for the effective use of funds; articulates things that school districts should avoid doing as Read more about Blueprint to Help Urban School Districts Effectively Spend New Federal COVID-19 Relief Funds[…]
Writing for the Fordham Institute, Adam Tyner reviews a new research report by Jackson and Mackevicius that explores how money matters for student outcomes. Excerpts from the piece appear below: The overall effect of an additional $1,000 of spending per child on test scores, based on 2018 prices and over four years of school, is Read more about How does money matter for schools?[…]
State Departments of Education are receiving their third round of funding from the federal government, also known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Funds. This infusion of funding is the federal government’s largest ever single investment in our schools. When the money arrives at the state level, 90% of it will have to Read more about Sources of Evidence for Educational Programs[…]
COVID-19 has presented new challenges for schools and families to grapple with when it comes to student learning — but the pandemic also has illuminated shortcomings and missed opportunities that have long been present in our education system. A new series of briefs from Bellwether offers guidance on how the education sector can recenter and Read more about From Pandemic to Progress: Eight Education Pathways for COVID-19 Recovery[…]
Writing for Future Ed, Karen Hawley Miles envisions a future for public schooling that makes the most of current flexibilities. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Let’s not repeat the mistakes the education sector made in responding to the last major disruption of the education system. In the wake of the 2008 recession, many school Read more about What Post-Covid Schools Could Look Like-Starting This Fall[…]
Writing for Chalkbeat, Matt Barnum has compiled eight lessons the sector has learned from education research in 2019. Excerpts of his piece appear below: Education research is hard to keep up with, and often enough, it’s hard to even understand. It seems like there are more caveats than clear conclusions, findings are “mixed,” and one Read more about Eight lessons we learned from education research in 2019[…]
Predominantly white school districts in the US get $23 billion a year more than districts that educate mostly non-white children, an education advocacy group says. A report from EdBuild, which promotes equity in public schools, found that the average white school district got $13,908 for every student in 2016, compared to $11,682 per student in Read more about Inequity in Education Funding[…]
In the Center for Public Education’s blog, The Lens, Robin Lake lays out 10 bold new ideas to push the education field toward the future. How can a shift in mindset from a portfolio of schools to a portfolio of learning opportunities help realize every student’s potential and prepare them to solve tomorrow’s most important Read more about The Year of Thinking Forward[…]
The PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools is the most trusted source of public opinion about K-12 education. This poll queried U.S. adults about a range of issues confronting education, including teacher pay and the teaching profession, school security, options for improving the public schools, perceptions of opportunities for different groups Read more about 2018 PDK Poll of the Public’s Attitude Toward the Public Schools[…]
Eric Hanushek recently wrote an issue brief for AEI detailing the connection between quality education and a state’s economic future. Key points of the brief include the following: A key element of any successful economy, whether a nation or a state, is the quality of its workforce. The economic gains to each state from improving Read more about Every State’s Economic Future Lies with School Reform[…]