"Districts' Use of Weighted Student Funding Systems to Increase School Autonomy and Equity: Findings from a National Study. Volume 1," is intended to provide both practitioners and policymakers with detailed information about the design, implementation, and outcomes of weighted student funding (WSF) systems in the United States. Findings…

In 2011, President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan provided states with an opportunity for flexibility from certain requirements under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, currently known as the No Child Left Behind, or NCLB, Act. A total of 43 states; Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; and eight districts in…

This paper provides federal policymakers and advocates with comprehensive, big-picture ideas for transforming federal policy to support the transition to competency-based learning. It is meant to start a dialogue on these issues, posing important questions to explore as policymakers contemplate a new vision for federal education policy through the…

This final report presents findings from a multi-year evaluation of the Comprehensive Technical Assistance Centers, a federally funded program that provides technical assistance to states in connection with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. With the redesign of the Center…

Over the past two decades, community organizing has emerged as an effective force for school improvement. In the context of shrinking education funding, stubborn opportunity and achievement gaps between low-income and wealthy children and between children of color and White children, and polarizing debate on school reform, community organizing…

This document presents a five-step process for schools, districts, and states to use in monitoring accommodations for instruction and assessment. This document was designed to be a companion to the "Council of Chief State School Officers' Accommodations Manual: How to Select, Administer, and Evaluate Use of Accommodations for Instruction and…

The federal government has had a long-standing commitment to ensuring access of English Learner (EL) students to a meaningful education. As early as 1968, the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA") contained provisions for supporting the education of EL students and in its 1974 landmark decision, "Lau v.…

Flexibility is a lever for change that occupies an increasingly prominent place in federal strategies for educational improvement. Flexibility assumes that local actors are in the best position to identify the most serious problems facing schools and students and to determine how to solve them. Consequently, these actors should be given greater…