In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress enacted several programs that provided federal funds specifically to prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus in elementary and secondary education, or provided funds that could be used for that purpose. These programs include the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund,…

In the 2020-2021 school year, more than 25 million children and youth -- roughly half of all elementary and secondary students in the United States -- attended schools in school districts that lacked dedicated funding to identify and support students experiencing homelessness. This significant funding gap increases the likelihood that many…

A long overdue, much needed transformation is underway in the higher education system. It started a decade ago, when federal and state policy­makers first began to collect data on what students earn after pursuing a postsecondary education. But new data are fundamentally differ­ent. Unlike broad-based national statistics, such as how much someone…

The federal Race to the Top competition provided significant impetus for states to adopt value-added models as a part of their teacher evaluation systems. Such models typically link students to their teachers in the spring semester when statewide tests are administered and estimate a teacher's performance based on his or her students' learning…

This Memorandum is issued in response to the February 22, 2013, Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies, "Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research." Through this Memorandum, OSTP directed all agencies with greater than $100 million in research…

This document outlines the Smithsonian Institution's plan to provide increased public access to certain peer-reviewed scholarly publications and supporting digital research data that arise from research funded, in whole or in part, by a federal funding source ("Federally Funded Research Materials" or "FFRM"), consistent with…

Changes in legislation including NCLB, RTT, and ESEA Flexibility Waivers have influenced the educational landscape. States and school districts have spent considerable time and resources to meet the mandates of this changing legislation, including the development of reporting systems and modification of principal evaluations systems. However, the…

Education data can empower educators, students, parents, and policymakers with the information they need to make the best decisions to improve student achievement, information that can move the nation toward an education system in which every student graduates prepared for college and career. Safeguarding the privacy of student data is a critical…

Special education, a discipline that aims to provide specialized instruction to meet the unique needs of each child with a disability, has turned 40 years old in the United States. Ever since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142) in 1975, every state has been directed to provide a free and appropriate…

Within the subfields of political psychology and the study of gender, the introduction of new data collection efforts, methodologies, and theoretical approaches are transforming our understandings of these two fields and the places at which they intersect. In this article we present an overview of the research that was presented at a National…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) preserves the most positive legacy of the No Child Left Behind era--more accurate and transparent data about the performance of all students--and helps states take their efforts to use data in support of student learning to the next level. The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) appreciates the opportunity to provide…

By combining an overall vision for the use of data, a commitment to protecting student privacy and data integrity, and supportive legislation, Georgia emerged as a leader in the effective use of student data. But it easily could have gone another way. None of the three elements could be taken for granted when Georgia set out to develop its state…

This report, based on surveys completed by all 50 State Education Agencies (SEAs) and the District of Columbia (DC) and nationally representative samples of districts and schools during spring 2011 and 2012, examines implementation of the key education reform strategies promoted by the Recovery Act in 2011-12, the extent to which implementation…

Data are a valuable national resource for a variety of stakeholders across all sectors of society. Dramatic advances in information and communication technology have opened up unprecedented opportunities for broad public access, innovative research, and citizen engagement, but this potential can be realized only if data are properly managed and…

Teachers and students increasingly enjoy unprecedented access to abundant web resources and digital libraries to enhance and enrich their classroom experiences. However, due to the distributed nature of such systems, conventional educational research methods, such as surveys and observations, provide only limited snapshots. In addition,…