Public Engagement

Long term financial considerations are quickly becoming a top concern for district and school leaders as federal stimulus discussions falter and local budget projections increasingly show massive shortfalls in communities across the nation. In reviewing lessons learned from the 2008 Great Recession and the resulting…

Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers of America’s leading companies, recently issued a set of education recommendations for members of the business community, who the council says “can be part of the solution [to the opportunity gap] by investing further in programs that…

Writer and mom to a student who happens to have Down’s Syndrome, Vicki Vila discusses how accountability measures put into place by ESSA have helped and motivated schools to ensure a proper learning environment for students who receive special education services at a greater rate…

The Virginia Department of Education is accepting feedback on three proposed changes to it’s ESSA state plan, all of which were introduced prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes would clarify requirements for students who take advanced math courses prior to the…

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute’s Michael Petrilli, in examining the developing conversation around additional K-12 stimulus funding for schools, argues that any federal investment should be distributed in a way that directly provides services to kids “most at risk of falling even further behind.” To…

Two new reports from the Data Quality Campaign discuss the need for educational data as officials continue to make many, complex decisions amid the COVID-19 pandemic and in recovery. The first report focuses directly on the importance of transparency and provides clear ways that education…

Chad Aldeman of Bellwether Education Partners and Anne Hyslop of the Alliance for Excellent Education ask questions about the focus of accountability measures during and after the COVID-10 pandemic. If districts were, in most places, the entities setting up food distributions, purchasing Chromebooks, making decisions…

Transportation has become a significant thorn in the sides of districts working to craft back-to-school plans for the fall, as officials struggle to identify workable solutions for social distancing, sanitation, and scheduling of fleets of busses. In order to meet guidelines released by the Center…

To mitigate teacher shortages, the Virginia Department of Education and the James Madison University College of Education have announced a new partnership called the Virginia New Teacher Support Program, which aims to retain novice teachers in the state. Under this program, first and second-year teachers…

As previously reported, Georgia has become the first state to announce its intent to seek a federal testing waiver for the 2020-21 academic year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Officials at the Georgia Department of Education are now asking the public for feedback on this…

Students’ social-emotional learning is being prioritized by education stakeholders more than ever before. That why in this Ed Surge article, Dr. Bill Daggett, “founder of the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE) and former teacher, administrator, and director with the New York State Education…

According to the Catholic News Agency, “Federal coronavirus aid to private schools is now enforceable by law.” This notice comes after “concerns that Catholic and other non-public schools were being excluded from sufficient epidemic relief funds to support protective equipment for students and teachers, cleaning,…

Celina Morgan-Standard, founder and CEO of the Technology for Education Consortium, and David DeSchryver, Director of Research at Whiteboard Advisors, take to EdSurge to discuss some ways in which school leaders and policymakers might begin facing the very expensive reality of reopening schools following COVID-19….

Eanes Independent School District in the greater Austin area has received the Best Communities for Music Education designation from the National Association of Music Merchants Foundation for the sixth year in a row. “The recognition is awarded to districts demonstrating outstanding achievement in efforts to…

According to a new report by the Learning Policy Institute and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, a growing shortage of secondary school principals is “hampering the country’s efforts to provide quality educational opportunities for students.” Among the key findings, the new report found…

As reported in the Montana Standard, “cuts to a program that provides funding to rural schools serving students from low-income families will be delayed after mounting criticism.” Previously, the U.S. Department of Education had proposed changes to the Rural Low-Income Schools program’s eligibility requirements. A…

State lawmakers in Kentucky advanced a bill that “would alter Kentucky’s school accountability system” out of the Senate Education Committee. The legislation would “gauge student achievement on annual K-PREP results, called ‘status,’ and improvement over time, called ‘change.’” The amended version of the bill gives…

In a piece published by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, education expert Christopher Holmes outlines what rural school districts can do to facilitate greater parent engagement. Namely, Holmes writes, “to meet the goals of parent and family engagement policy in ESSA, educators must abandon their own middle-class…

Launched last month by the Indiana Department of Education, Indiana’s new data portal, INview, “aims to make it easier for families to access school information.” According to spokesperson Adam Baker, the site includes data not previously available, including “school and corporation level data on student…

The Indiana Department of Education’s new data portal, INview “provides both general information about the state’s approximately 1,900 K-12 schools, along with data visualizations on performance metrics like attendance and academic achievement.” The tool was intentionally designed to present school data in a user-friendly manner…

As reported in Education Week, in a letter to Congress, “a group of state and local education officials, teachers’ unions, and others” report the significant progress they are making under the Every Student Succeeds Act,” noting that the law “could lead to significant advances in…

The Every Student Succeed Act pushes “states, districts and schools to identify key measures of school quality and to examine and act on the gaps in outcomes and opportunities for historically marginalized student groups.” This latest phase in the evolution of K-12 accountability can and…

A town-hall-style meeting—themed “Lessons from the Past”—held at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center in Fort Lauderdale brought together policymakers and stakeholders for a discussion of ESSA and how the law “holds schools accountable for how students learn and achieve, while also providing…

On Tuesday, December 10, the Collaborative for Student Success is hosting an afternoon discussion of ESSA four years to the day after the law was signed. Taking place at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., this special event will include a conversation with ESSA’s…

In a shift from its predecessor NCLB, ESSA has given the Oregon Department of Education (DOE) greater flexibility to address and improve student performance across entire school districts rather than individual schools. Educators who have experienced both approaches “are hailing the change,” according to this…