Student participation in summer programming can be an effective way to address students' academic and developmental needs. When well implemented and well attended, summer enrichment programs, academic programs, and employment programs have demonstrated positive outcomes for youth in areas related to program content, including academic achievement…

As federal funding for summer learning as a pandemic recovery strategy phases out, state governments face decisions about their future role in supporting students' access to quality summer learning opportunities. This brief is based on the full report, "How States Are Expanding Quality Summer Learning Opportunities," and summarizes…

Prioritizing social, emotional, and behavioral supports is essential for student success. By establishing systems to support students' social (how they interact), emotional (how they feel), and behavioral (how they act) needs and growth, educators and leaders can ensure that all students have full access to instruction and the essential skills for…

Recent data from statewide assessments, scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and college remediation needs show that an increasing number of K-12 students are not performing at grade level. As schools look to support these students' learning, some districts are turning to a proven strategy for identifying the students…

The purpose of this brief is to provide school-level examples of how early college practitioners are collecting and using data to improve their practices. Examples three and four are school-level data from two early college partnerships: the MetroWest CPC (Framingham, Milford, Waltham), and Lawrence. The brief begins, however, with the national…

This contribution takes a critical perspective on digital school performance platforms (SPP), which today play a key role in US state education monitoring and accountability. Using examples from two different US state education agencies, I provide an analytical disentanglement of some key dimensions of such platforms' enactment and materiality. I…

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) involves using information gathered from and about students to make ongoing decisions about their instruction. Many teachers struggle with implementation of DDDM practices to optimize instruction, underscoring the importance of teacher education vis-à-vis DDDM. The present study secondarily analyzed existing data…

Emerging practices in both K-12 and higher education hold great promise in the establishment of equity frameworks. The use of finely disaggregated data, the effort to track additional student groups, and related work, all help to establish policies and tools to monitor the impact of reform efforts to address inequities. State programs and…

It's been nearly 25 years since the first MCAS tests were taken. Since then, the test and the state's accountability system have brought resources to underfunded schools, highlighted inequities in our education system, and pushed Massachusetts to first in the nation in academics. But, with progress stalling, a new understanding of the importance…

This action research takes place at a small, New England public school system in Hopkinton, MA, and was designed to build the capacity of educators by utilizing a cycle of inquiry to improve Data-Driven Decision Making. The action steps of this study established a building-based Student Learning Team at Hopkinton Middle School which, in…

Increasing numbers of states have incorporated measures of students' academic growth into their data and accountability policies. Measuring growth is a statistically complicated task and complex growth measures can be easy to misinterpret. This paper reports on a survey of 317 Massachusetts principals' understanding of the Student Growth…

An increasing number of high schools have adopted Tier 1 PBIS; however, implementation of advanced tiers of PBIS in high schools is less common and specific guidance is scarce. To address this need and better understand the level of support needed to successfully implement advanced tiers of PBIS at the high school level, the National Center on…

This report is drafted with state leaders and policy makers in mind, including those who work with or support these education leaders. The information shared in this report will likely be most relevant to states that have either not yet considered a new data system on teacher preparation providers, are only now starting to consider the idea, or…

Since the introduction of the specific learning disability (SLD) classification in federal special education legislation, there has been considerable ambiguity and controversy about the criteria that should be used in the determination of SLD (Kavale & Flanagan, 2007; Zumeta et al., 2014). Various models have been introduced to identify…

An achievement gap is defined as a significant difference in academic performance between two groups. Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) data indicate that, in Crestland Public School District (pseudonym), there is a clear achievement gap in mathematics between students with disabilities and those without disabilities,…