Public Engagement

In Education Dive, Linda Jacobson takes a look at a recent Bellwether Education Partners “State of Assessment” report, which “comes as the federal government is considering applications for a $17.6 million competitive grant program that would support efforts in four to eight states related to these…

Daarel Burnette II reports for Education Week that several superintendents in Massachusetts “are spending more money on schools that enroll mostly wealthy students than they are on schools that educate mostly poor students, even though the state designed its funding formula to do the exact…

Last month, in this guest ECS post, Advance CTE’s Senior Policy Associate Austin Estes examined the latest research on, as well as state examples of, work-based learning as it has been put into practice. “While work-based learning is often delivered at the local level in…

Emily Barack reporting for Education Dive writes that, “a new RAND Corp. publication identifies 43 summer programs that meet the top three tiers of the Every Student Succeeds Act’s (ESSA) evidence standards.” In the analysis of the “Investing in Successful Summer Programs” report, “the researchers…

According to Eric Morris at the Uniontown Herald Standard, local businesses are bringing in teachers from local schools to observe daily operations “with the hope it helps grow STEM curricula and the Teacher in the Workplace (TIW) program,” a “state-funded initiative that places educators at…

“New standards under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) prompted the Frewsburg Central School Board of Education to review its performance,” writes Jordan Patterson for the Jamestown Post Journal. At a recent meeting, Assistant Superintendent Danielle Patti “presented to the board the results from the…

In this piece, Aaron Garth Smith takes a look at  California’s latest increase in education funding. Garth Smith argues that the additional funding must be accompanied by more effectiveness, citing that under ESSA, states have to publicly report school-level, per-pupil spending. “Since California has to…

In this piece, “Reflections of a School Reformer,” FutureEd’s Thomas Toch interviews Bob Wise, who recently departed as president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. Toch asked Wise to “reflect on the evolution of the school reform movement during his time at the Alliance,” including…

Suevon Lee reports for Honolulu Civil Beat that the nonprofit Education Institute of Hawaii has started a petition “in an attempt to convince the state Department of Education to turn over financial data the nonprofit says is key to building a fiscal transparency tool for…

According to The Chattanoogan, the National PTA has awarded five states, including its Tennessee affiliate, with a grant to help inform parents about school report cards and “empower them to advocate to ensure this data is accessible, transparent and actionable.” ESSA “requires school districts and…

On May 22, from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. ET at the Capitol Visitors Center in Washington, D.C., the Learning Policy Institute, Alliance for Excellent Education, American Institutes for Research, America’s Promise Alliance, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, Opportunity Institute, and Turnaround for…

Today from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET, Education Week will host an online summit that will take a “deep dive” into ESSA and give participants “a unique opportunity to directly interact with reporters and experts about implementation of the nation’s marquee K-12 law.” The…

In Education Week, as part of the publication’s “Answering Your ESSA Questions” series, Alyson Klein responds to a query posed by Sheryl Santos-Hatchett of the University of North Texas: “What if a state refuses to follow through on or retracts a state plan and doesn’t care…

Elizabeth Behrman reports for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on the Woodland Hills School District in Pennsylvania, which “is among more than 30 [school districts] that partner with the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s ‘Be There Campaign,’ aimed at reducing the number of students who are chronically…

Last month, the U.S. Department of Education published a new report—Opportunities and Responsibilities for State and Local Report Cards Under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act—and announced a public comment period ending on April 29….

In this blog post from the Latino Policy Forum, Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro and Karen Garibay-Mulattieri take a look at “the promise of equitable educational opportunities” for English learners under ESSA, with a focus on Illinois. “The Forum advocates for accountability systems which help us to understand…

The National Conference of State Legislatures’ College and Career Readiness State Legislation Project released a new ESSA State Plan Database of all state accountability plans submitted to and approved by the U.S. Department of Education. The database allows users to access individual state profiles and…

On April 10, the National Urban League released a new ESSA equity review, which rates the ESSA plans of 36 states and DC based on a dozen equity metrics, Education Dive’s Jessica Campisi reports. Metrics including resources, educators, and struggling school supports and interventions, were assigned…

Education Commission of the States recently published a report regarding school improvement plans and efforts in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This “comprehensive resource” provides “information identified in statute, regulation and states’ plans under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as of…

Virginia Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott told state school chiefs at the CCSSO Legislative Conference last week that “the Every Student Succeeds Act does give them more flexibility on setting policy and complying with federal law, it is not ‘a blank check,’” reports Alyson Klein for Education…

On Monday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos participated in a “fireside chat” with state chiefs at the CCSSO State Education Leaders’ Conference. According to Politico’s Nicole Gaudiano, DeVos asked “K-12 education chiefs to “continue to raise the bar” as they implement the Every Student Succeeds…

In this piece—which is part of the special report—Andrew Ujifusa focuses on the accountability angle, noting that despite the “procedural progress” made by states, the “myriad of state plans and the painstaking nature of their rollout make it difficult for those in the education policy…

In this piece in The 74, six parent-activists talk about their education engagement practices and how they were driven by wanting better for their children—and all children. These advocates started by “reaching out to other moms and dads and grandmothers and caretakers, giving them the…

Angélica Infante-Green has been nominated to serve as Rhode Island’s next education commissioner, reports Dan McGowen for the WPRI Eye Witness News. Although McGowan notes that Infante-Green “comes to Rhode Island at a time when test scores are lagging and achievement gaps are wide,” he…

New Mexico’s Public Education Department is set to begin changes to the state’s standardized test and teacher evaluations. Last week the department posted surveys for local stakeholders to weigh in on the upcoming changes. After the feedback period closes, PED plans to resubmit their state…