Providing teachers with data-driven feedback, aligned professional development and opportunities for advancement may help limit attrition, contribute to more effective teaching, and improve student learning. However, research shows that much of the professional development teachers currently receive does not improve either teacher or student…

Innovation zones help state policy leaders create space in state policy for local educators to design innovative education models. They allow local districts or schools to request a waiver from outdated state policies and regulations that communities have identified as a barrier to high-quality, student-centered learning. These models are also…

Since the 1990s, charter schools have spread rapidly across the nation. The replication and expansion of charter schools has become a common feature of the portfolio management model which situates the district as strategic manager of a choice-based system including traditional and charter schools. Yet, many school districts have experienced…

Funding for California's schools has reached record-high levels, although the pandemic has exacerbated longstanding inequities in student outcomes. As policymakers grapple with questions around how much to fund schools and how that funding should be distributed, existing research can provide insights into where and how to use additional funds to…

With rising state and local revenues--and significant one-time federal funds in 2020-21 and 2021-22--California policymakers now have greater capacity to invest in public schools. At the same time, longstanding racial and income disparities motivate calls to provide funding more efficiently and equitably. This policy brief is adapted from Julien…

Bilingual education--chiefly the subcategory of dual language bilingual education--has been undergoing a pattern where the interests of language-minoritized communities have in several contexts been pushed out of the way. One aspect of this gentrification process has been the "fiftyfication" of dual language bilingual education policy,…

An estimated 17% to 30% of new teachers in the U.S. leave the profession within their first 5 years of teaching. Some challenges that prompt new teachers to leave the field include stress, lack of appropriate support, and feeling unprepared to handle behavioral and academic issues among their students. Research supports the finding that teachers…

This report presents the findings of a survey of states that examined the policies, practices, and procedures State Education Agencies (SEAs) used to monitor IEPs for participation decision making in alternate assessments based on alternate academic achievement standards (AA-AAAS). It is imperative that only students with the most significant…

Advances in the science of learning and development, along with the increasing demands of life and work in the 21st century, are raising expectations for schools and educators. Policy levers that affect the teacher workforce will play a key role in meeting these expectations. This report, one of a series of state policy studies produced by the…

Eight states currently have bans on affirmative action, yet little research has focused on the characteristics of states that predict ban adoption. To begin filling this gap in the literature, I conduct discrete-time survival analysis on an aggregated data set of 47 states from 1995 to 2012 to investigate the extent to which various…

The practice of teacher education is inextricably linked to the policy environment in which it occurs. Calls by policymakers and politicians for accountability measures, standardization and performance assessments are efforts to influence the direction of the preparation of educators. In this self-study, I examine my participation in a state-level…

This article explores the nature of a federal intervention into teacher education through state policy making and problem framing. The authors examined the 16 comprehensive educator equity plans that were approved by the U.S. Department of Education in 2015 and surface four inadequacies the reports communicate about teacher education: (a) an…

A growing number of states are using state-run school districts to take over and improve persistently under-performing schools. There is a need for research on the policy discourse used by educational stakeholders to support or oppose school takeover. This study uses Georgia's Opportunity School District to analyze the role of racist narratives in…

Performance evaluation may change employee effort and decisions in unintended ways, for example, in multitask jobs where the evaluation measure captures only a subset of (differentially weights) the job tasks. We show evidence of this multitask distortion in schools, with teachers allocating effort across students (tasks). Teachers are evaluated…

State-level postsecondary policymaking is daunting. Policymakers navigate through myriad fiscal, political, and ideological constraints and opportunities as they strive to address pressing state concerns or goals. While researchers and advocates may point to "perfect" policy models, in reality perfect policy does not exist. All…