"Pathways to Implementation" highlights innovative strategies and effective models in career pathways policy, implementation, and programming, as well as challenges states encounter in this work. This seven-part series addresses the key elements of Bellwether's framework for career pathways policy implementation. Each brief defines the…

The School Bullying Prevention and Education Grant (BPEG) program has supported Colorado schools and districts in ending bullying since it was first funded in 2016, after having been created by H.B. 11-1254. Administered by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), as of May 2024, the BPEG program has distributed over $15 million toward this…

Research and evidence on education from 33 countries in Africa reflects rich diversity andunderscores the importance of tailoring solutions to the local context. Through this research, three key actions on education emerge as points of leverage for the continent: (1) Use local education data to make informed decisions that address country-specific…

Education systems are complex and involve many diverse actors. In order to have an impact on children's outcomes, policies and programmes must take on this complexity. Most education interventions are centrally designed, yet, in increasingly decentralized systems, they need to be adopted -- and often undergo adaptation -- at multiple levels of…

This qualitative case study examines how board members make sense of federal accountability policies and how their sensemaking shapes their use of assessment data as a policy instrument. Deviating from previous work on practitioner sensemaking, the participants' interpretations of assessments did not align with their ensuing use of the data.…

The adoption of learning analytics (LA) in complex educational systems is woven into sociocultural and technical challenges that have induced distrust in data and difficulties in scaling LA. This paper presents a study that investigated areas of distrust and threats to trustworthy LA through a series of consultations with teaching staff and…

School climate is important for continuous improvement. California's LCFF requires districts to report on school climate and use data to inform decision making. Qualitative data, derived from an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study, explored three belief constructs and sub-groups by response patterns. Education leaders have a range of…

This Working Paper explores the extent to which learning assessment data influence education policymaking according to the available literature. It presents the key conclusions arising from this literature as well as problematic issues which are still open for discussion. It is based on a broader literature review conducted by the UNESCO…

This brief shares learnings from Building Equitable Learning Environments (BELE) district partnerships around the sixth Essential Action: Measure What Matters. This Essential Action focuses on achieving equitable learning environments through the routine collection and review of relevant student feedback data to co-design new practices and…

Across OECD countries, the increasing demand for evidence-based policy making has further led governments to design policies jointly with clear measurable objectives, and to define relevant indicators to monitor their achievement. This paper discusses the importance of such indicators in supporting the implementation of education policies.…

The opportunity to take college courses in high school (dual enrollment) is becoming increasingly prevalent, but access is not equitably distributed. Certain populations, such as economically disadvantaged students and students who are members of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in college, are less likely to take dual…

In 2013, national education groups representing principals, school-employed mental health professionals, and school resource officers developed "A Framework for Safe and Successful Schools" (ED612657) to provide a common set of recommendations for policies and practices that create and sustain safe, supportive learning environments. The…