The College and Career Readiness Center at AIR has released a College and Career Readiness and Success (CCRS) Organizer Scorecard. This tool is a self-assessment that can provide a snapshot of where your district or state is in integrating the multiple elements that impact college and career readiness and success for students in the K-12 Read more about How ESSA Can Help States Improve College and Career Readiness[…]
The Institute of Education Sciences’ Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest has released a new survey tool that will help education leaders assess to what degree schools are engaging in practices associated with high performance. The survey and associated guide were developed in partnership with REL Midwest’s School Turnaround Research Alliance. The School Survey of Practices Read more about New Survey Helps Schools Identify Best Practices for Improving School Performance[…]
Helen Ladd writes in the Brookings blog about an alternative to school accountability – an inspection and review system for schools: Inspection and review systems use professional inspectors to make periodic visits to schools – and ideally also to districts. The inspectors review school documents, talk to school leaders and teachers, and may also survey Read more about School Quality Reviews[…]
Over the past 15 years, a national consensus has slowly coalesced around one of the most enduring and contentious debates in education circles: how to hold schools and districts accountable for improving outcomes. The Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA, is in many ways the culmination of the movement towards more sophisticated accountability systems and Read more about Making the Grade: A 50 State Analysis of Accountability Systems[…]
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was passed by Congress in December, and the law affords states much more flexibility to develop innovative educational systems and accountability processes. Now is an incredible opportunity for the transformation of American education, state by state. In this month’s issue brief, Core Education explores the opportunities under ESSA, including Read more about Core Education Issue Brief: ESSA – Seizing the Opportunity[…]
As states work to finalize plans for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) by the 2017-18 school year, Education First asks, what is your state’s North Star and how can you use ESSA to help you chart a course to reach it? When a state has an education North Star – a shared statewide vision Read more about Making the Most of ESSA[…]
A recent article from Education Week, by Marc Tucker, criticizes the way states are handling the implementation of ESSA. The hottest item at the recent meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers was ESSA, the new federal education legislation that replaced No Child Left Behind, but the big question on the minds of Read more about ESSA: Time for States to Seize the Initiative[…]
For more than a decade, Achieve has issued an annual 50-state report on each state’s adoption of college- and career-ready (CCR) policies as reflected in state standards, graduation requirements, assessments, and accountability systems. Having the right policies is necessary to ensure that students graduate academically prepared for college and careers, but policy alone is insufficient. Read more about States’ Accountability Systems Flawed for College Readiness, Report Finds[…]
The new Every Student Succeeds Act returns to the states much of the authority for directing school improvement that the federal government had assumed in the past 15 years. Some states are ready to roll, but plenty are searching for potential role models. Fortunately, at least two such candidates are easy to find. Earlier this Read more about A Tale of 2 States: Lessons to Be Learned[…]
Under the newly enacted Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states now face the challenge of creating school accountability systems that can vastly improve upon the model required by No Child Left Behind. To help spur creative thinking about how they might do so, and also to inform the Department of Education as it develops its Read more about ESSA Accountability Design Competition Submissions[…]
Now that Congress has reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and given states control over their own accountability systems, what will states do with the new flexibility? Pretty much the same thing they have been doing for the past four years, says a report released by the Council of Chief State School Officers. More Read more about States’ Continued Commitment to Next-Generation Accountability Systems[…]
A new resource, from the Aspen Institute’s Education & Society Program, challenges state chiefs and their leadership teams to consider their local context and capacity in determining essential, possible, and unsuitable roles for their agency and to make staffing and funding decisions that reflect this context. This discussion guide helps state leaders consider what roles Read more about Setting Roles and Responsibilities of the State Education Agency[…]
As both the federal government and states face unprecedented challenges in raising standards and increasing outcomes for all students, state education agencies (SEAs) need to take a new approach; one focused less on compliance and more on performance management. For most SEAs this is a daunting and complicated task. A new study from the Center Read more about Leading State Education Agencies Focus on Data, Worry about Access to Talent[…]