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Personalized, competency-based learning efforts often take place in a single classroom or school, but not systematically across districts, let alone states. To address this dynamic and increase the scale of personalized, competency-based learning, KnowledgeWorks, an independent nonprofit organization that partners with education stakeholders to advance personalized competency-based learning efforts, has engaged in state level implementation support of personalized, competency-based learning in a number of states, including Arizona, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina. The purpose of this report is to serve as a resource for the states and districts already involved in personalized, competency-based learning, provide considerations for other states adopting personalized, competency-based learning, and offer lessons learned for the wider field. The research team and KnowledgeWorks established three goals for the study at the outset: (1) Document approaches and lessons learned from policy adoption and implementation of personalized, competency-based learning policies in four states; (2) Identify how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the move towards personalized, competency-based learning in each state; and (3) Identify how each state defines and operationalizes its equity commitment within the state's personalized, competency-based learning efforts.

Pennsylvania has "the highest cyber charter school enrollment in the country" with student enrollment soaring in 2020-21 due to concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. School districts paid over $1 billion in tuition for students enrolled in Pennsylvania's 14 cyber charter schools in 2020-21, a $335 million increase over the prior school year. Districts now cite charter school tuition as their top budget pressure. In a 2017 study, Research for Action found that districts are unable to realize substantial savings when students depart for charter schools, leaving the vast majority of tuition as a "stranded cost" or negative fiscal impact on district finances. Here we apply the findings of that study to estimate the fiscal impact of the expansion of cyber charter schools attributable to the pandemic. We find that year-one stranded costs ranged from $290 to $308 million dollars statewide, highlighting the need for policymakers to address the inefficient spending on cyber charter schools in current law. We also describe the broader context of cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania.

Definitions of teacher experience vary by state and research study. Most states consider a teacher inexperienced if they have between 1-5 years of experience in the classroom as full-time educator. Pennsylvania's 2015 plan identified inexperienced teachers as those with one or less years of teaching experience, but the federal Civil Rights Data Collection definition for inexperienced teachers includes first or second year teachers. Using personnel records from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), this Allegheny County Education Research (ACER) report, takes a closer look at teacher experience in Allegheny County, examining whether equity gaps exist between district and charter schools and between student subgroups.

Teacher mobility, or teacher turnover, has long garnered attention as a critical educational equity gap. This attention is warranted as, within schools, teachers have the single greatest impact on student achievement. The unprecedented interruptions to school-based learning and the trials of navigating remote and hybrid instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic heightened concerns about the stability of the teacher workforce and the potential of a pending teacher shortage across the U.S., state of Pennsylvania, and locally in Allegheny County. This study takes a closer look at teacher mobility in the region by examining six years of data leading up to the pandemic. Specifically, this study: (1) Identifies teacher mobility trends in Allegheny County public schools from 2014-2015 to 2019-2020; (2) Describes the destinations of mobile teachers; and (3) Identifies key characteristics of mobile teachers and the schools they exited and entered within the county to determine if potential equity gaps exist. This report concludes with implications for policy and practice including a list of suggestions for educational leaders to reduce mobility and eliminate consequential disparities for students.

In recent years, some school districts across Allegheny County have made noteworthy changes to school policing. While some districts have sought to reduce or eliminate reliance on police, a growing number of other districts in the county have, with community support announced expanded police presence and in some cases have decided to arm police. Yet there has been little public reporting about the actual presence of police in Allegheny County schools. While data on police presence is limited, in this brief we find that: (1) school police presence has increased across Allegheny County over the past five years; (2) school security guards are disproportionately located in county districts with the highest concentrations of students of color, while school police are more evenly distributed; and (3) Allegheny County school districts with higher concentrations of students of color spend more per pupil on "safety and security" measures. [This is a publication of Allegheny County Education Research (ACER), a project of Research for Action (RFA).]

In March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic caused schools to close for the remainder of the school year, all Pennsylvania school districts and charter schools were required to "make good faith efforts to implement continuity of education plans for the duration of the 2019-20 school year." RFA analyzed these plans for each of the 43 districts and for 13 charter schools located in Allegheny County. During these months of remote instruction in Allegheny County: (1) Districts and charters relied heavily on asynchronous (work at your own pace) instruction and alternative grading and attendance tracking; (2) Students missed significant amounts of formal instruction time; (3) The overall quality of remote instruction varied widely, with students experiencing inequitable access to devices and other technology; (4) Most plans provided only vague descriptions of how they would provide special education and student support services; and (5) Access to quality remote instruction varied by student race and poverty. [This is a publication of Allegheny County Education Research (ACER).]