Thoughts from the Field

“The data moment has arrived,” says Data Quality Campaign President and CEO Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger in a piece for the 74 Million. Citing the prioritization of data collection and use throughout a number of Executive Orders and strategies employed by President Joe Biden, Bell-Ellwanger says, “it’s…

A bill being considered in Colorado would establish a dedicated early childhood department tasked with building a plan for universal preschool in the state by 2023. Using funds from a new nicotine tax recently approved by voters, the expansion of pre-K in the state would…

Education Week’s Andrew Ujifusa says “a disconnect has emerged between the federal government requiring states to offer their tests, and districts’ power to exempt students from taking them,” citing the nuanced path federal education officials have taken in responding to individual state requests for scaling…

D.C. is now the only state to have its waiver request for federally-required assessments approved by the Education Department, even as handfuls of other states saw their requests to cancel spring tests this school year denied. Deputy Education Secretary Ian Rosenblum cited D.C. having among…

Testing 1-2-3 commentator Dale Chu kicked off a new Power Rankings series on the Collaborative’s Assessment HQ platform by evaluating Washington state’s proposal to administer a sampling of its annual summative assessment this school year. Across four categories – opportunity to demonstrate learning of all…

In light of the Education Department’s decision to refrain from issuing a second year of waivers of federally required statewide student assessments this school year, states are rapidly shifting their conversations to focus on how best to collect, present, and use resulting data on student…

For many schools, ensuring that students who receive special education resources were able to continue receiving services during the pandemic proved to be one of the most difficult challenges resulting from school closures – one that has carried an uptick in “due process” litigation cases…

In a recent piece in Education Week, Columbia University political science and education professor Jeffrey Henig urges the administration of President Joe Biden to commit earnestly to building a “community-friendly national culture of data generation, dissemination, and use.” Henig adds, “A reimagined system of data…

If confirmed, President JoeBiden’s pick for education secretary, Connecticut Education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, would bring a perspective previously unseen in the role – that of a student whose first language was Spanish and who learned English primarily at school. As a former English learner, writes…

Schools should be encouraged by state education agencies to take daily attendance during online and hybrid learning, says Attendance Works Executive Director Hedy Chang in a recent interview with FutureEd’s Phyllis Jordan. The pair discussed a new Attendance Works report focused on state attendance policies…

As the first presidential candidate in decades to include full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as a campaign goal, President-elect Joe Biden has promised to make an effort to deliver billions of dollars of additional federal funding to special education programs…

A new set of recommendations from the California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission says schools in the state should become community-based “wellness centers” that coordinate mental and other health services through new partnerships with local and regional nonprofit providers. The commission sites a…

Arts education can be leveraged by schools to deepen mental health and wellness resources for students, says the Education Commission of the States, which in a time of great disruption in education, should include trauma-informed approaches to instruction and student and family outreach. State, district,…

An analysis of career and technical vocational (CTE) programs in middle and high schools by the Hechinger Report and Associated Press found deep inequities in the populations of students steered into various programs. Across 40 states, Black and Latino students were significantly less likely to…

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…

Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post reports that Georgia will be the first state that will pursue a federal testing waiver for the 2020-21 academic year due to the coronavirus pandemic. This school year, Education Secretary Betsy Devos approved a one-year waiver that suspended “federally…

In this new report, the Brookings Institution takes a look at the recent release of the National Center of Education Statistics’ results from the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) civics assessment to answer whether public schools are living up to their “core mission”…

As Beth Hawkins reports, one elementary school in Fort Worth, Texas, has gone from being “one of five schools that struggled with years of rock-bottom performance” to one that has attracted national attention for a number of closely watched school improvement initiatives that are credited…

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…

When the Every Student Succeeds Act was passed into law on December 10, 2015, President Barack Obama called it a “Christmas Miracle.” While “public schools are still in the process of formally adjusting,” to the law and some critics continue to raise concerns over its…

Proposed changes by the Department of Education (DOE) to the “massive trove of civil rights data” the agency collects from every public school in the country are being lauded by “advocates concerned about anti-Semitism in schools” while also prompting “concern from other civil rights groups…

The Collaborative for Student Success is still taking reservations for our special discussion on the Every Student Succeeds Act on the law’s four-year anniversary. If you’re able to make it, this promises to be an informative and interesting event featuring an overview and discussion with…

School spending by the states is the latest issue to garner criticism from the U.S. Department of Education, as Andrew Ujifusa writes for Education Week. Information on school spending is mandated under ESSA and, so far, 17 states have reported it, with a lot more…

ESSA “was designed to remedy the wrongs” of NCLB, Andrew Saultz, Jack Schneider, and Karalyn McGovern write in the Phi Delta Kappan. But the law has failed to live up to its promise. The trio argue that this is the result of the U.S. Department…

“Kentucky education officials had to scramble after learning a new state law ran afoul of federal education law, putting funding in jeopardy,” writes Olivia Krauth for the Louisville Courier Journal. “During the legislative session this year, state lawmakers passed a bill changing how schools are identified…