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In July 2023, Governor DeWine and the General Assembly enacted bold literacy reforms via his budget plan (House Bill 33) that require Ohio elementary schools to follow the Science of Reading starting in 2024-25. This approach to reading instruction emphasizes phonics to help students "decode" words, as well as knowledge- and vocabulary-rich content to help them comprehend what they're reading. The bill also prohibits use of "three-cueing," a widely used but discredited technique that prompts children to guess at words rather than sounding them out. Recognizing that extra resources were needed to transition schools successfully to the Science of Reading, lawmakers budgeted $169 million for better instructional materials, professional development, and literacy coaching. To prepare schools for the transition, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce (DEW) recently laid the groundwork for classroom-level implementation of scientifically based reading programs. This report focuses on three important steps the agency has taken since passage of House Bill 33 in July 2023: (1) vetting and approving a list of high-quality instructional materials from which schools may choose; (2) collecting, via statewide survey, information about the English language arts (ELA) curricula used by Ohio schools prior to the recent reforms; and (3) allocating state funds to subsidize the purchase of new curricula and materials. Key takeaways based on analyses of these activities and policy recommendations are offered.

Despite the popularity of teacher leadership since the 1980s, little research examines its effects on student achievement. In this paper, I assess the influence of the New York City Department of Education's Teacher Career Pathways program, a teacher leadership initiative, on student achievement in grades three through eight. Using difference-in-difference approaches, including new event study estimators, I find that where school leaders staffed teacher leaders into formal roles with defined responsibilities, positional authority, and commensurate salary increases, student achievement in ELA and math improves. Moreover, the improvement in scores compounds over time, with schools exhibiting increasing gains in each year following the initial introduction of teacher leaders. Schools that do not staff teacher leaders do not observe similar outcomes. I consider these results in the context of democratic policymaking and teacher empowerment, suggesting that teachers must be formally empowered in schools to lead meaningful changes that ultimately improve student achievement.

We estimate the effects of federal pandemic-relief funding (ESSER III) for K12 schools on district-level student achievement growth in 2023. We rely on student test achievement data from over 5,000 school districts across 30 states. Our novel identification strategy exploits variation in ESSER attributable to its allocation rules and their relationship to Title I. We find that each $1,000 increase in ESSER per pupil funds led to statistically significant increases in district math scores of 0.008 standard deviations and similar but statistically insignificant increases in ELA scores. Our heterogeneity analysis suggests impacts were not even across district pre-pandemic spending levels, student race, or urbanicity. Our estimates provide some insight into how much investment may be needed for a full academic recovery from the pandemic: to recover losses remaining after 2023, we estimate schools would need to spend $9,000 to $13,000 per pupil.

Newsela contracted with LearnPlatform by Instructure (LearnPlatform), a third-party edtech research company, to examine the relationship between Newsela ELA usage and outcomes for students. LearnPlatform designed the study to satisfy Level II requirements (Moderate Evidence) according to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The study included 2,464 6th-8th grade students (1,232 students who consistently used Newsela ELA (i.e., twice a week on average) and 1,232 students who did not use it) across 162 elementary and middle schools in a large, urban district in California. An average student not using Newsela ELA would be expected to score 4 percentile points higher on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium ELA assessment (SBAC) had they used Newsela ELA. Similarly, an average Hispanic/Latino student not using Newsela ELA would be expected to score 5 percentile points higher on the SBAC had they used Newsela ELA. These findings were statistically significant at the p = 0.05 level. This study satisfies ESSA evidence requirements for Level II (Moderate Evidence) given the positive, statistically significant findings. [This report was prepared for Newsela by LearnPlatform.]

The assessment landscape is varied and complex. Because assessments serve many purposes, they can take multiple forms depending on what they are measuring and how they are used. The intended purpose behind each assessment influences its design, and the design influences how assessment data can be used by students and their families, school, district and state leaders. State and district policymakers have important decisions to make about when and how to gather and use assessment data across K-12 education systems, but federal policy is a key component of every state's assessment system. This report discusses how the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) lays the foundation for state summative assessment systems and requires state education agencies to implement statewide assessments. In addition to federal compliance requirements, states may use assessment data in separate state accountability systems or opt to administer certain assessments to better inform policymaking and priorities.

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of Oregon's public schools. The purpose of the Statewide Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving the goals referred to in ORS 329.015. This report also provides a tool that makes education data accessible to researchers, media, students, and families and creates a clear, complete, and factual picture of the state of education in Oregon. [For the 2021-2022 report, see ED628178.]

While multiple studies have examined the impact of school turnaround, less is known about reforms under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). To advance this literature, we examine North Carolina's Restart (NCR) model. NCR aligns with ESSA by giving school leaders increased flexibility. Also, NCR differs from previous turnaround models by repackaging a traditionally sanction-based approach to instead motivate school leaders with increased autonomy. Using comparative interrupted time series models, we find positive NCR effects in math, but not in English Language Arts or on non-test-based student outcomes. Also, nearly a quarter of the positive NCR effect can be explained by decreased teacher and principal turnover. These results provide evidence to support current shifts toward reform models featuring local autonomy.

As part of integrated instruction, educators aim to efficiently and simultaneously address learning goals across multiple subject areas like English language arts (ELA) and science or social studies. While studies are beginning to show that this instructional approach can be effective, it is challenging to implement in practice, requiring that educators dedicate considerable energy to sourcing interdisciplinary texts. This study explored whether Newsela ELA could enable integrated instruction and lead to stronger reading outcomes for students in upper elementary school. Newsela ELA is a knowledge and skill-building platform with a vast content library that includes thousands of leveled nonfiction texts and standards-aligned multiple-choice quizzes. This study compared upper elementary classes that used Newsela ELA to support integrated instruction throughout an entire school year to control classrooms within the same school that searched the Internet to find texts for integrated instruction. Fourth grade Newsela users exceeded the state's reading performance average. They demonstrated the equivalent of about three additional months of literacy skill growth more than peers in comparison classrooms when evaluated against national normative growth benchmarks. Newsela classes read 44% more nonfiction texts and engaged in more frequent multiple choice practice than comparison classes. Newsela teachers were less reliant on Google to source classroom texts. Results suggest that Newsela ELA can help make integrated instruction feasible for teachers by making it easier for them to find high-quality texts and for their students to engage in valuable skills practice. Newsela ELA appears to have increased the quality of texts students accessed without adding additional instructional time. [This report was produced by newsela.]

To comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 and related U.S. Department of Education peer review guidance, state education agencies must provide evidence demonstrating clear alignment (technically referred to as correspondence) between their K-12 English language proficiency standards and their academic content standards. This technical paper provides evidence of match, breadth, consistency [balance of representation], and depth of correspondence between WIDA consortium member state academic content standards in English language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies, as of Fall 2022, and the components of the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework, 2020 Edition--specifically the four WIDA Key Language Uses and their grade-level cluster and content area instantiation in the WIDA Language Expectations. It also illustrates the relationship between the grade-level cluster Language Expectations and Proficiency Level 5 of the Proficiency Level Descriptors. State correspondence evidence helps ensure that K-12 students identified as English learners (referred to as multilingual learners by WIDA) have the opportunity to learn the critical elements of language that facilitate access to and achievement of academic content. [For the summary report, see ED631052.]

This report summarizes teacher workforce challenges and recent initiatives in Texas that are shaping the state of the educator workforce in important ways. Ongoing teacher shortages have led to the creation of a wide range of pathways into the profession, featuring varying types and amounts of training. A growing body of research demonstrates that these differences in pathways are associated with meaningful differences in teachers' knowledge, skills, and effectiveness, as well as the rates at which they enter and leave the profession. These differences have implications for student learning, school management, and equity, since the districts that have the most difficulty hiring fully prepared teachers are those that serve the most students of color and students from low-income families. This report reviews the emerging research; describes the substantial efforts Texas leaders and institutions are making to address concerns about workforce preparation and stability; and provides additional actionable, research-based policy recommendations. [Funding for this report was provided by the Charles Butt Foundation. For the Research Brief, see ED630217.]

Alaska's last literacy blueprint was written in 2011. A lot has changed in 12 years. Since then, Alaska adopted new English Language Arts standards to reflect the advanced literacy students need to be ready for college and careers. The Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (DEED) adopted the Alaska Native Cultural Standards for Culturally Responsive Schools. The State Board of Education and DEED worked with educators and community members from across the state to create Alaska's Education Challenge, which placed third-grade reading proficiency as a state priority. Region 16 Comprehensive Center and DEED created Alaska's Reading Playbook, which defines the Science of Reading and provides strategies to teach phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. DEED created the Alaska Strategic Reading Plan based on input from partners and stakeholders. Most recently, the Alaska Reads Act became law. DEED has implemented the Comprehensive Literacy State Development Grant, and we also have two new assessments: mCLASS by Amplify and the Alaska System of Academic Readiness (AK STAR). mCLASS by Amplify helps educators identify students K-3 who might be at risk for reading difficulties. AK STAR helps provide an accurate picture of proficiency at the end of the school year. All of this change can get hard to track -- and that's where the blueprint comes in! This document is designed to provide partners, stakeholders, and communities with one document that summarizes our collective literacy efforts statewide. Throughout the blueprint, you will find links where you can access more information on current and historical literacy work in Alaska. The blueprint also provides a snapshot of current student demographics and assessment results.

The Washington State Board of Education (SBE) issues an annual report to the Governor, the Legislature, and the public, in accordance with the Charter School Act, RCW 28A.710.250. The statute requires the annual charter school report to include the following: (1) the performance of the state's charter schools during the preceding school year, including a comparison of the performance of charter school students with the performance of academically, ethnically, and economically comparable groups of students in traditional public schools (TPS); (2) the SBE's assessment of the successes, challenges, and areas for improvement in meeting the purposes of the Washington Charter Public Schools Act (RCW 28A.710), including the Board's assessment of the sufficiency of funding for charter schools, the efficacy of the formula for authorizer funding; and (3) any suggested changes in state law or policy necessary to strengthen the state's charter schools. [For the 2020-2021 report, see ED629099.]

This 15-page document provides a high-level summary and key excerpts from WCER Working Paper No. 2023-3 (ED631017). Readers should consult the full working paper for more in-depth detail and evidence, particularly in the extensive appendices. This technical summary reports on analyses conducted during the standards development process to establish a clear correspondence between the WIDA ELD Standards Framework, 2020 Edition (WIDA's K-12 English language proficiency standards), and the academic content standards used by WIDA consortium member State Education Agencies (SEAs). The analyses assess the match, breadth, balance of representation [consistency], and depth between these two types of standards. The paper also offers evidence of correspondence between these two types of standards and offers a methodology for states to use. It reports on the broad analysis used to update the WIDA ELD Standards Framework to ensure it could be applied flexibly across the consortium. SEA correspondence mappings are specific to individual SEAs. As federal law and peer review indicate the final responsibility for standards lies with states, WIDA is able to offer this technical paper as a tool to support the state correspondence process. [For the full report, see ED631017.]

This paper examines the impact of Teach For America (TFA) on following-year student test and non-test outcomes in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. This paper measures the extent to which exposure to TFA is followed by improved student outcomes in the future. In particular, this paper measures days missed due to absences or suspensions, course grades in each core subject, and progression in math courses. We find that students taught by TFA math teachers go on to have higher grades in math courses in the following year and are less likely to miss school due to being absent or suspended. However, while students in TFA classrooms score higher on math and ELA assessments in a given year, these test score gains fade out by the following year.

Developing schedules is one of the most challenging undertakings that school and district leaders do every year. It's also one of the most important. School schedules often have significant inefficiencies that impact student experiences and outcomes, like course offerings that don't align with student needs; mismatches in resources across schools; or inconsistencies in class sizes. This has a disproportionate impact on students with higher needs. When approached strategically, schedules provide an immense opportunity to address critical priorities with district staffing, budgets, and academic goals. This case study reveals how Lubbock ISD partnered with Timely to use scheduling to make significant progress toward its SY23-24 priorities--even in the face of declining enrollment and the looming ESSER fiscal cliff. A new scheduling process allowed the district to: (1) improve middle school academic performance by investing in double blocks of ELA and math; (2) increase capacity to better serve students with disabilities by hiring more staff members across grades 6-12 and dedicate additional funding for professional development; and (3) efficiently allocate resources across all schools by scheduling more consistent class sizes and teacher loads in middle and high school. [This report was co-produced by Timely and Lubbock Independent School District (LISD).]

New York State's system of public elementary and secondary schools is in steep decline, but it is salvageable. The roots of its problems pre-date the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, but the system's response to that challenge accelerated discontent with the schools and harmed students. The damage of those years will not be undone if the state blindly continues to throw money at schools--unless there is a fundamental re-thinking of the purpose and governance of public education. New York consistently leads the nation in K-12 school spending, yet by 50-state standards, student outcomes are mired in the middle. If higher spending automatically led to higher quality, New York would be a model for the nation. Unfortunately, this model has demonstrably failed, and it is time for state leaders to fundamentally rethink their approach to education. This brief discusses: (1) the impacts of a change in the mayoral control of the New York City schools; (2) charter school outcomes; (3) the misguided college-for-all push; (4) and five areas in which the governor can lead a change in approach to education.

The Oregon Statewide Report Card is an annual publication required by law (ORS 329.115), which reports on the state of public schools. The purpose of the Statewide Report Card is to monitor trends among school districts and Oregon's progress toward achieving the goals referred to in ORS 329.015. In addition, this report provides a tool that makes education data accessible to researchers, media, students, and families and creates a clear, complete, and factual picture of the state of education in Oregon. This annual report acts as a snapshot of the state's education system that includes important statewide data about students, teachers, and schools from the 2021-22 school year. The data routinely archived in this report continues to be impacted by the statewide response to the COVID-19 pandemic. [For the 2020-2021 report, see ED619789.]

The Smarter Balanced Assessment System consists of three components: (1) interim assessments designed to support teaching and learning throughout the year; (2) a suite of tools and resources in Tools for Teachers that support classroom-based formative assessment practices; and (3) end-of-year summative assessments designed for accountability purposes. This document describes the interim assessments, including their purpose, type, and use. For each grade and subject, this document provides a list of interim assessments available for the 2022-23 school year.

Teachers Educating All Multilingual Students (TEAMS) is a teacher professional development program at Oregon State University that culminates in an English for speakers of other languages endorsement and/or a dual language specialization. TEAMS is partially funded through an Office of English Language Acquisition National Professional Development grant from the U.S. Department of Education, and participants receive scholarships to cover tuition. This study explores whether TEAMS professional development had an impact on the academic outcomes of English learner students whose teachers participated in TEAMS. The study authors used a two-step matching procedure to identify a group of comparison teachers in TEAMS school districts who appeared likely to enroll in TEAMS. They then selected a subset of students who had statistically indistinguishable demographic characteristics, program enrollment, and academic achievement from TEAMS students. Due to complications related to the COVID-19 pandemic, reliable assessment data were only available for the academic year 2018/19. The study found that teachers' participation in TEAMS positively impacted English learner students' English language arts assessment outcomes. English language arts testing scores of English learner students taught by TEAMS teachers were 0.348 standard deviations higher than those of comparison students taught by comparison teachers. This difference is statistically significant and of moderate size, representing a 13.6 percentile point increase for an average English learner student. Teachers' participation in TEAMS had no impact on students' English language proficiency outcomes.

This report provides an update on the state of the research on testing accommodations. Previous reports by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO) have covered research published since 1999. In this report, we summarize the research published in 2020. During 2020, 11 research studies addressed testing accommodations in the U.S. K-12 education system. The research also highlights important emerging issues including the role of technology in facilitating accessibility for students with disabilities through built-in accommodations and in considering needed practices for applying technologies. [For the 2019 report, see ED620540.]

ORS 327.016 directs the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to prepare an annual report on English learner program funding and student outcomes. The report's intention is to describe the population of English Learners in Oregon and provide a summary of district and state progress towards meeting their needs and objectives. The ODE annually reports four groups of English learners: current, former, ever, and never English learners. This report consists of five sections: (1) Demographics of English Learners in Oregon in 2020-21; (2) Participation in Targeted Programs; (3) Language Development and Academic Outcomes for English Learners; (4) Attendance, Progress toward Graduation, Graduation, and Beyond; and (5) State Revenues and Expenditures for Current English Learners. [For the 2019-20 report, see ED619790.]

For over two years, schools, teachers, students, and families across Illinois have worked to adapt instruction and learning under the ever-changing conditions wrought by COVID-19. This report, the third and final in the Learning During the Pandemic in Illinois series, investigates how much time students spent learning in-person and/or remotely during the 2020-21 school year (SY21), and how it related to students' achievement outcomes for grades 5-8. These findings are relevant for school leaders and policymakers as they implement learning recovery efforts. As detailed in the first report of this series, Trends in Instructional Modality During the 2020-21 School Year, remote instruction was not experienced evenly across schools with different student populations in Illinois. In schools serving higher proportions of White students, students spent more time learning in-person during the SY21, on average, while schools serving higher proportions of Black, Latinx, low-income, and English learner (EL) students spent more time instructing remotely. In the second report in this series, Does School Instructional Modality Predict Average School Achievement?, we showed that while all schools in Illinois declined in average test scores, schools serving grades 3-5 performed worse on standardized tests when students spent more time in remote learning. For schools serving grades 6-8 and/or 11, the relationships between learning modality and achievement were smaller and mixed. The current report builds upon the previous two. For students in grades 5-8, we dig deeper into understanding instructional modality at the level of the individual student. We ask: 1. How did the proportion of time learning in-person versus remotely vary for students in different demographic groups in Illinois? 2. Was student instructional modality in SY21 related to average student achievement, controlling for student and school characteristics? 3. Did the relationship between modality and achievement vary depending on the school that a student attended? We show that, across schools, the proportion of time students spent learning in-person was positively related to their test scores in English Language Arts (ELA) and math. [For Part 1, see ED624501. For Part 2, see ED624503.]

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 was marked by a transition to remote learning in Illinois schools and nationwide. The following school year, schools and families faced difficult decisions about how and when to return to in-person learning. School leaders, parents and caregivers, and students considered how to balance concerns for health and safety during the 2020-21 school year (SY21) with concerns about the impact of remote instruction on student learning, socioemotional development, and other needs (Darling-Aduana et al., 2022; Rapaport et al., 2020). This report, the second in the Learning During the Pandemic in Illinois series, follows a study on patterns of remote and in-person instruction across Illinois public schools during SY21. In that report, we showed that schools statewide followed distinct patterns in learning modalities over the course of the year. While most schools started the year in remote learning, they varied widely in the amount of in-person instruction students experienced as the year progressed. To date, no studies have examined how the amount of in-person learning in SY21 related to student achievement in Illinois schools. Here, we document the associations between instructional modality pathways and test scores for students in grades 3-5, 6-8 and 11 statewide. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we ask: How do school modality pathways relate to average school achievement in the SY21? Our findings show that schools' instructional modality pathway was an important predictor of their mean test score outcomes. [For Part 1, see ED624501. For Part 3, see ED624504.]

In March of 2020, in response to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Illinois mandated the transition to remote instruction for all schools. Although schools had the option to resume in-person instruction during the 2020-21 school year (SY21), the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) acknowledged that in-person instruction may not be safe or feasible for all schools and all students. In turn, districts and schools made decisions, conditional on the contexts of their schools and communities, to return to in-person instruction, remain in remote instruction, or employ a combination of in-person and remote instruction over the course of the SY21 (ISBE, 2020). Additionally, students and caregivers in schools that offered in-person instruction often had a choice to attend in-person or continue learning remotely. In this report, the first in the Learning During the Pandemic in Illinois series, we ask: What were the patterns in instructional modality throughout the SY21, and how did those patterns relate to school characteristics? The second report describes the relationship between modality in schools and school average test scores in English Language Arts (ELA) and math. The third report examines how in-person attendance at the student level contributed to student learning. In the current study, we grouped schools into four pathways based on movements across instructional modalities at four key time points: September 2020, December 2020, February 2021, and April 2021. These pathways varied in the amount of in-person instruction students received over the course of the year, ranging from substantially in-person to entirely remote across all four time points. We uncovered important differences in school characteristics across modality pathways. [For Part 2, see ED624503. For Part 3, see ED624504.]

The Lyceum, implemented by Guilford County Schools (GCS), was an arts education program designed to promote arts integration for all GCS students and exposure to Entertainment Arts & Technology for students at Penn-Griffin School for the Arts. The Lyceum impact evaluation used a quasi-experimental design (QED) to examine the effect of Entertainment Arts & Technology and group or private lessons on academic achievement. The study examined outcomes for students in school years 2020-21, 2021-22, and 2022-23. Outcomes for Lyceum (treatment) students were compared to students from the same schools who did not participate in group or private lessons or in the Entertainment Arts & Technology curriculum offered during the three school years (comparison). Regression analysis was conducted in ELA and math for three academic year cohorts of implementation. There were significant differences in ELA achievement between treatment and comparison students only within Cohort One. Results indicated that comparison students had higher scale scores than treatment students. Additional significant results were found with respect to minority group status and gender with girls outscoring boys and with nonminority students outscoring minorities. There were no significant differences in ELA achievement in Cohorts 2 and 3. There were no significant differences in math for any of the three cohorts. Our second research question included regression analyses comparing district data for four subgroup populations in ELA and math. In two years (2022 & 2023), district implementation of arts integration resulted in a smaller decrease in score for English learners when compared to four other districts for math end-of-grade test scores. In 2023, Guilford reported higher mean scores than the comparison districts. In two analyses from 2023, the Lyceum students scored lower than the comparison districts for black students and English learners on end-of-grade ELA scores. The third research question compared our treatment schools to the district ELA and math averages. In all years, comparing baseline and outcome years, only the participating high school exceeded the mean proficiency levels in both subjects. Given the delay in launching the Entertainment Arts & Technology courses in the studio space and the interruptions due to the pandemic, additional data collection and analyses could confirm or expand the impact of arts integration on all district student academic outcomes and for those participating in Entertainment Arts & Technology. While we did find some statistically significant results in our three studies, results should be interpreted cautiously given our small sample size and limited time and intensity of the intervention. [This report was prepared for the Guildford County Schools.]