Search

To help address funding and teaching resource disparities across districts in the state, Texas leaders developed the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA). The Allotment aims to make the teaching job more appealing and sustainable, particularly in rural areas and in areas with a high concentration of economically disadvantaged students. This document discusses how the TIA program works and the impact of the program.

In an era of unparalleled disruption and low teacher satisfaction, residency programs offer a critical opportunity to reimagine what's possible for our nation's teachers. These programs have been shown to help districts fill hard-to-staff subject areas, boost teacher retention rates, and nurture more diverse pipelines of educators. And when new teachers get support and hands-on training from experienced educators, they're often more effective in their roles and better equipped to help their students thrive. But it takes money to implement and sustain a strong residency program. That's why it's vital for the leaders involved at every level of a teacher's training--from the state leaders who secure funding for programs to the directors who run residencies and the education school leaders who prepare new teacher cohorts--to work together to create financially sustainable systems. Education Resource Strategies partnered with the National Center for Teacher Residencies to study six residency programs and develop a framework for financial sustainability. They found that when leaders make the right strategic resource shifts, they can not only reduce their individual costs but do so without shifting unnecessary financial burden onto the residents themselves. Explore the findings from this latest analysis to see how to raise the bar for new teacher supports.

Research has shown that ninth grade is uniquely important for student success, yet despite increased investments, leaders aren't always equipped to meet ninth graders' distinct needs. The transition from middle to high school is both critical and complex, as students encounter significant changes during this time, including taking on more advanced content and more responsibility for their own learning. Given the importance of this critical year, there should be an increased investment in ninth grade. In Education Resource Strategies' work with states and districts, however, it was often seen that high school students and teachers aren't receiving the resources and supports they need, with comparative under-resourcing in key areas of ninth grade support, including around teacher experiences and student experiences. This report offers four key structures that can enable a stronger ninth grade experience and discusses how school and system leaders can support this shift.

Exploring Summer Youth Employment Programs: Increasing Access Through Career Pathways builds the case and provides actionable recommendations for state-led support in the intentional alignment of summer youth employment programs (SYEP) with career pathways and the work-based learning continuum, including through Career Technical Education (CTE). This tool was produced through JPMorgan Chase's "New Skills ready network," a five year, $35 million initiative aimed at developing equitable career pathways and policy recommendations that give underserved students access to higher education and real-world work experiences that lead to high-wage, in-demand jobs.

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).]

Reimagining the teaching job requires redesigning the underlying economic structures of the job with new staffing plans, redistributed schedules, competitive compensation models, and adjusted conceptions of what counts as "learning time." This document outlines actions that build toward longer-term transformation, rather than short-term solutions. It shows what this transformational change might look like in the context of five different "catalytic entry points," or starting points for holistically redesigning educator roles. The goal is to demonstrate how leaders can fundamentally restructure teaching roles to improve educators' and students' day-to-day experiences--without spending money and resources on actions that offer only short-term benefits.

"Creating Communities of Care: How Charter Schools can Develop Systems that Support Student Mental Health" provides new tools to help charter schools adapt to the changing needs of their students and staff. This resource focuses on improving student mental health and well-being to help set the foundation for school community wellness. Charter leaders can use this resource to learn about the research base and strategies for comprehensive student and community well-being that is aligned with the U.S. Department of Education's Return to School Roadmap. The report is divided into three segments: (1) Section 1 provides a summary of key research that links improved mental health and well-being with positive outcomes for students and schools; (2) Section 2 unpacks the framework by providing strategies for comprehensive and responsive support for mental health and well-being, and it features three charter organizations--Valor Collegiate Academy, Rocky Mountain Prep, and Uplift Education--sharing how they are responding to the needs of students and staff; and (3) Section 3 includes guidance for how school leaders can apply continuous improvement to create systems that support communities of care or refine currently existing systems.

Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) refers to the various processes for recognizing and awarding credit for college-level learning gained outside the classroom. In December 2021, Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group convened the Credit for Prior Learning Shared Solutions Workgroup, whose members represented state postsecondary education agencies and governance boards, two- and four-year systems and institutions and national partner organizations. The workgroup was tasked with: (1) Identifying the main barriers or challenges to building a robust and fully equitable system of CPL policies and practices; (2) Exploring best practices related to statewide and local guidance on the implementation of CPL to advance more accessible and equitable postsecondary programming, career pathway completion and credential attainment; (3) Identifying existing resources or models to engage learners in utilizing CPL policy within their career pathway; and (4) Informing and contributing to tools and resources to support state and local leaders in the development and implementation of policies and practices that lead to effective, scaled use of CPL. The workgroup engaged with the existing body of research and tools on credit for prior learning to guide their approach to designing this Policy Benchmark Tool. This policy benchmark tool serves as a comprehensive resource to empower state, system and institutional leaders to assess current CPL policy and practice to accelerate learners' completion of career pathways that lead to high-quality credentials.

Highly effective principals are critical to their school systems, contributing to both student outcomes and teacher retention. But despite some stabilization during the pandemic, teacher and principal turnover rates are rising again at the district and school levels, especially at high-need schools. And our recent original research underscores an overlooked cyclical effect impacting teachers and students alike: When principals leave their schools, teachers are more likely to leave, as well. But when principals get effective support from their district office--including around attracting and retaining highly effective teachers--they're less likely to leave their school, which can stabilize teacher turnover rates and improve student outcomes and experiences. Our latest brief outlines four key supports that district leaders can provide to principals, mitigating the turnover cycle and boosting both principal and teacher retention.

As the COVID pandemic has led many Americans to reevaluate the status quo and expand their sense of possibility about new ways to organize work, it's time to reimagine the fundamentals of the teaching job. Reimagining the teaching job demands that leaders at all levels reconsider the ways in which people, time, and money in schools and school systems are organized in pursuit of a bold, new vision that has the potential to elevate both the teaching profession and outcomes for all students. This paper provides an overview of this vision through the sections: (1) The crisis of the teaching job; (2) A new vision for the teaching job; (3) What this looks like in practice; and (4) How we get there.

While there is interest in pathways-aligned high school math reform among secondary education stakeholders, change in high school math depends a great deal on policies, practices, and norms at the higher education level. This report focuses on the role of higher education in influencing (encouraging or deterring) secondary education math reform. To better understand this topic, researchers from the Community College Research Center (CCRC) and the Education Strategy Group (ESG) conducted interviews with representatives from national secondary math education organizations as well as individuals from each of three states participating in Launch Years-- Georgia, Texas, and Washington--who are engaged in efforts to reform high school math. This report first presents findings on the ways that higher education affects secondary math reform in broad terms, relying on data from these interviews. This is done by describing several domains of higher education practice identified by the interviewees that tend to present challenges to high school math reform. The report discusses potential solutions to these challenges and considers ways that higher education can facilitate high school reform efforts. The report then presents short case studies of secondary math reform efforts in three states (all of which have also undertaken math pathways reforms--at least to some extent--at the college level) with a focus on the influence of higher education in effecting change. The report concludes with a brief discussion of an overarching theme that appears to be central to much of this work: the importance of sustained conversation and collaboration between math educators and administrators from both sectors--higher education and K-12--in moving secondary math reform forward.

This report explains how State Entity (SE) Program grantees are using or proposed to use the technical assistance (TA) set-aside portion of their Charter School Programs (CSP) funds for these activities. This report also describes SE activities to ensure subgrantees are equipped to meet the needs of all students, and specifically students with disabilities and English learners (ELs). Researchers gathered data for this report from all SEs that received grants between 2017 and 2019 by reviewing their approved applications, surveying SE grantees in spring 2020, and conducting a follow-up survey completed in January 2021. The report begins with a summary of aggregate findings across the grantees, followed by descriptions of how funds are used by each individual SE grantee. This report will be updated when CSP awards new SE grants.

In a dedicated effort to build high-quality, equitable career pathways Advance CTE, in partnership with Education Strategy Group through JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s "New Skills ready network," released "Braiding Funding To Support Equitable Career Pathways." This policy brief is the fourth in a series designed to help build better career pathways. This brief explains the sources and benefits of braiding funding, highlights promising practices for braiding funding in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Montana and Oklahoma and provides recommendations to enhance high-quality funding alignment and sustainability practice: (1) Align stakeholders and systems around a common goal; (2) Conduct an analysis of career pathways-aligned funding sources and streams; and (3) Have a sustainability plan to mitigate shifts in funding. [For the third brief in this series, "Strengthening Career Pathways through the Power of State and Local Partnerships," see ED613576.]

We investigate whether student participation in undergraduate research--a high impact practice at TBR community colleges--has an effect on (1) academic performance; (2) probability of graduation, university transfer, and student departure; and (3) time to completion, transfer, and departure. Using enrollment, graduation, and course-taking data on community college students from the Tennessee Board of Regents and National Student Clearinghouse, we track the 2017 freshmen cohort over twelve calendar semesters and examine their exposure to undergraduate research experiences and their key educational outcomes. We generate propensity scores with a machine learning algorithm and use a doubly robust inverse probability weighting estimator to mitigate the selection bias and compare outcomes of similar students among undergraduate research participants and nonparticipants. Overall, we find that undergraduate research participants demonstrate better academic performance, are more likely to graduate and transfer, are less likely to depart, and progress to transfer and departure slower than similar nonparticipants. The effects grow in size with an increase in frequency of undergraduate research experiences.

Motivation for the study: The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) is implementing and expanding a suite of high impact practices (HIP) in its community colleges. Service learning, one of such HIPs, is incorporated into general education or degree programs' requirements via credit-bearing service learning components of different durations. While service learning participation and student results are examined periodically, this study contributes to the program evaluation by conducting a series of quantitative analyses that aim to assess whether a causal relationship exists between service learning experiences and key educational outcomes of first-time freshmen at community colleges. Objectives: To investigate whether participation in serving learning HIP affects: (1) the probability of earning a college credential, transferring to university, and student departure; (2) time to graduation, university transfer, and departure; and (3) academic performance. To examine if and how these effects, if any, differ by service learning duration and frequency of participation. Methods: Different types of propensity score analysis were used, including inverse probability of treatment weighting and matching and nonparametric regression, to estimate the effect of service learning participation on outcomes of interest in general and by duration level. In the final models, propensity scores were estimated using generalized boosted modeling. Dosage analysis was employed to examine the effect of frequency of service learning participation. The following modeling techniques were used for different outcomes: logistic and OLS regression, and event history analysis (Cox regression model). Results: Service learning participation increases the probability of graduation and university transfer, decreases the probability of student departure, expedites progression to graduation, delays progression to university transfer and departure, and is associated with a higher final GPA. The estimated results differ by duration level and frequency of service learning experience. Conclusion: Service learning, as implemented at TBR colleges, is an efficacious HIP, which contributes to both community college freshmen student success and institutional performance.

Individual Career and Academic Plans (ICAPs) are a key piece of connected career advising that align learners' career and life goals with academic, postsecondary and career pathway options. ICAPs have different names in different states, including Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) and Individual Graduation Plans (IGPs). They refer to both the process of engaging in individualized academic and career development activities as well as the product: a living, usually online, portfolio that is created by each learner and regularly updated as they advance through school and transition into the workforce. This brief highlights promising practices for ICAP implementation at the state and local levels in Colorado, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin and provides recommendations for further state and local work to scale ICAPs. It was developed through JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s "New Skills ready network," a partnership of Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group.

Although school failure and school improvement are complex challenges that look different in different contexts, patterns and trends associated with schools in distress are emerging. This brief describes the characteristics of schools when they show signs of early distress from the perspectives of school leaders and governing board members. The findings in this report can support school leaders, governing board members, charter school support organizations, and authorizers in creating and sustaining high-quality schools by recognizing the various signs of early school decline before schools spiral into failure. Identifying schools in distress affords schools, and the ecosystem supporting them, the opportunity to intervene earlier, before failure is too deep, systemic, or extensive to recover. With this new understanding of school failure--now more than ever--we have the opportunity and the imperative as a field to identify schools in distress while improvement is still feasible. This is the third publication in a series on indicators of distress in charter schools. This research brief builds on "Identifying Indicators of Distress in Charter Schools, Part 1: The Role and Perspective of Charter School Authorizers," (ED609911) which identified common indicators of distress among schools in decline from the authorizer point of view. It also follows "Identifying Indicators of Distress in Charter Schools: Tools to Support Authorizer Data Collection" (ED616212), a self-guided resource for authorizers to identify indicators of distress, audit their current data collection methods for evaluating indicators of distress, and assess whether and to what extent the schools in their portfolio are showing indicators of distress.

Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the six sites selected to participate in the "New Skills ready network." This five-year initiative, launched by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2020, aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. In the first year of the initiative, the Nashville, Tennessee, "New Skills ready network" team evaluated current career pathways to ensure alignment to high-wage, high-demand careers; worked to create a data-sharing agreement between secondary and postsecondary partners; and developed shared definitions around equity. The Nashville, Tennessee, team also created a career pathways assessment tool to determine where strengths are within career pathways as well as ensure alignment with the state's certified career pathways process. This snapshot provides a summary of the two major priorities of Nashville, Tennessee's "New Skills ready network" team: (1) establishing a shared understanding around systemic barriers to racial equity; and (2) developing a data-sharing agreement between secondary and postsecondary institutions to ensure seamless learner transitions and postsecondary success. [For "New Skills Ready Network Early Achievements & Innovations: Year One," see ED616558.]

Denver, Colorado, is one of the six sites selected to participate in the "New Skills ready network." This five-year initiative, launched by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2020, aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. In the first year of the initiative, the Denver, Colorado, team -- working under the name New Skills Ready Initiative (NSRI) -- began developing strategies for data sharing among secondary and postsecondary systems, mapping their shared career pathways, and working on a model for co-advising. The state of Colorado, alongside Denver, also prioritized the need for improved career planning and further strengthening its workforce development system. This snapshot provides a summary of the two major priorities of Denver, Colorado's "New Skills ready network" team: (1) building a shared data framework to better measure the impact of career pathways; and (2) mapping career pathways to ease learner transitions. [For "New Skills Ready Network Early Achievements & Innovations: Year One," see ED616558.]

Indianapolis, Indiana, is one of the six sites selected to participate in the "New Skills ready network." This five-year initiative, launched by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2020, aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. In the first year of the initiative, the Indianapolis, Indiana, "New Skills ready network" team developed an internal project management infrastructure that supports strong cross-sector partnerships through regular monthly leadership team meetings. The team selected five career pathways to focus on and pilot future work around, and they conducted a meta-analysis of labor market indicators. The team also initiated foundational work around data sharing and data infrastructure to allow partners to measure learner progress across the initiative. State agencies, in their work alongside Indianapolis partners, continued their work on the Next Level Programs of Study, which Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) will help to pilot throughout the next school year. This snapshot provides a summary of the two major priorities of Indianapolis, Indiana's "New Skills ready network" team: (1) identifying initial career pathways of focus to pilot implementation of upcoming work; and (2) creating data infrastructure to guide strategic planning and increase access to outcomes data. [For "New Skills Ready Network Early Achievements & Innovations: Year One," see ED616558.]

Dallas, Texas, is one of the six sites selected to participate in the "New Skills ready network." This five-year initiative, launched by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2020, aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. In the first year of the initiative, the Dallas, Texas, "New Skills ready network" team launched a virtual internship toolkit and employer recruitment campaign, completed their initial labor market information (LMI) analysis focusing on post-COVID-19 changes, started career pathway mapping, completed a landscape of middle school and high school career exploration activities and programs, and started an equity analysis of learner participation in career pathways. This snapshot provides a summary of the two major priorities of Dallas, Texas' "New Skills ready network" team: (1) developing a community-aligned view of LMI; and (2) creating a collaborative approach to work-based learning supported by a virtual internship toolkit. [For "New Skills Ready Network Early Achievements & Innovations: Year One," see ED616558.]

Columbus, Ohio, is one of the six sites selected to participate in the "New Skills ready network." This five-year initiative, launched by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2020, aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. In the first year of the initiative, the Columbus, Ohio, "New Skills ready network" team focused on building both the internal capacity of each partner organization and the capacity of the new leadership team developed to support this work. The team identified and established workgroups around work-based learning, communications and equitable career pathways to leverage the unique prioritized a number of key foundational elements of their overall strategy, including improving their data capacity and identifying the two initial program areas (health care/health services and information technology) in which they will focus their efforts for the next year expertise of each organization and to ensure progress in the key priority areas. Lastly, the team prioritized a number of key foundational elements of their overall strategy, including improving their data capacity and identifying the two initial program areas (health care/health services and information technology) in which they will focus their efforts for the next year. This snapshot provides a summary of the two major priorities of Columbus, Ohio's "New Skills ready network" team: (1) developing relationships and building capacity across and within partner organizations; and (2) identifying and analyzing program areas to attend to career pathway quality. [For "New Skills Ready Network Early Achievements & Innovations: Year One," see ED616558.]

This annual report provides an overview of the early achievements and innovation from the first year of the "New Skills ready network" initiative. With the support of Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group, the six "New Skills ready network" sites -- Boston, Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Nashville, Tennessee -- engaged in a robust process to analyze current policies and practices; did an analysis of their data to identify equity gaps around access, enrollment and outcomes; and analyzed their capacity for collecting, reporting and using data across and within institutions and state agencies. The findings from the needs assessments set the foundation for each site's year one action plans and identified best practices associated with the four priority areas: (1) strengthening the alignment and rigor of career pathways; (2) designing, implementing and scaling real-world work experiences; (3) building seamless transitions to support postsecondary success; and (4) closing equity gaps. [For the related 2020-21 Snapshots, see ED616530, ED616559, ED616560, ED616561, ED616562, and ED616563.]

Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the six sites selected to participate in the "New Skills ready network." This five-year initiative, launched by JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2020, aims to improve student completion of high-quality career pathways. In the first year of the initiative, the Boston, Massachusetts, "New Skills ready network" team identified data capacity gaps to measure career pathway experiences and outcomes, leveraged shared definitions of high-quality college and career pathways (HQCCP) and work-based learning, completed a COVID-19 (coronavirus) labor market analysis for the city, began the critical work of understanding equity and cultural wealth frameworks, and developed an equity-minded approach to call for and support pilot high schools that will serve as early models of HQCCP in high-priority industry sectors. This snapshot provides a summary of the two major priorities of Boston, Massachusetts' "New Skills ready network" team: (1) building a systems-change mindset among the cross-sector team; and (2) developing common and foundational definitions to signal their commitment to equity. [For "New Skills Ready Network Early Achievements & Innovations: Year One," see ED616558.]

Community partnerships empower charter schools by strengthening their capacity to serve the needs of students, families, and staff through deliberate partnerships with community-based entities. The autonomy that charter schools are afforded uniquely equips them with the flexibility to engage partners and even design schools for which one or more partnerships are a key design element--such as with traditional public schools/districts, industry partners, colleges, universities, or other educational or community institutions. This report is intended as a resource for charter school operators in any phase of school development in their design and implementation of community partnerships. The sections in the report: (1) explain what community partnerships are and how they can benefit charter schools; (2) provide snapshots of four charter schools' use of community partnerships; (3) summarize what makes successful community partnerships; and (4) articulate a process for designing and launching a community partnership, including resources for learning more.

Districts across the country are planning how to invest huge influxes of one-time ESSER funds -- targeting funds toward meeting urgent academic and social-emotional recovery needs, as well as redesigning better, more equitable approaches to teaching and learning. But short-term investments are often not enough to generate meaningful long-term change, and many districts will want to sustain the changes they are funding with ESSER dollars beyond the three-year period. Therefore, district leaders will need to begin planning "and investing" for sustainability. In this brief, we outline four considerations to help district teams plan their ESSER spending with long-term sustainability in mind.

As students and educators conclude a school year like no other, district leaders are looking ahead to 2021-2022. Planning has already been underway for months, and now, with an infusion of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding, district leaders are faced with key decisions about how to invest those funds strategically. Navigating these challenges and opportunities is best approached with a "do now, build toward" mindset. This means addressing critical student needs now "and" laying a sustainable foundation for lasting improvement. In this brief, we detail seven crucial principles for investing ESSER funds with a "do now, build toward" approach, highlight key considerations for each, and share resources to help your district realize its vision.

Fostering strong relationships that break silos between learning and work and align skill-building opportunities across secondary, postsecondary, adult and professional levels is critical to building high-quality career pathways and learner-centered career preparation ecosystems. In this work, trust, common purpose and resources for sustainability are all necessary for effective state and local partnerships. This resource from Advance CTE, in partnership with Education Strategy Group through JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s "New Skills ready network," is the third and final in a series of policy briefs centered on strengthening career pathways. It offers promising practices for leveraging the strengths of both state and local leaders and maximizing the capacity of state resources to cultivate sustainable, scalable partnerships and advance high-quality career pathways. This brief provides five components to achieve this goal and highlights promising practices and programs in Colorado, Hawaii, Nebraska and Tennessee. [For the second brief in this series, "Intentional Acts of Dual Enrollment: State Strategies for Scaling Early Postsecondary Opportunities in Career Pathways," see ED613574.]

While about three-fourths of all public school districts offer dual credit opportunities in Career Technical Education (CTE) courses, many programs face gaps in alignment between secondary and postsecondary CTE programs that lead to quality and equity inconsistencies in early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) across career pathways, ultimately keeping learners from fully leveraging these valuable opportunities. This policy brief by Advance CTE, in partnership with Education Strategy Group through JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s "New Skills ready network" is the second of a series of policy briefs centered on building better pathways, and offers best practices for designing strong statewide policies for removing barriers for participation in EPSOs in postsecondary credential and degree programs that lead to high-skill, high-wage and in-demand careers. When states build more cohesive systems where early postsecondary opportunities (EPSOs) such as dual enrollment are fully counted, valued and portable, learners have more equitable paths to college and career success. This brief provides four key strategies to achieve this goal and highlights effective programs in Ohio, Tennessee and Utah: (1) Advancing buy-in and systems alignment through institutional partnerships; (2) Building robust and streamlined state policy that builds EPSOs into career pathways; (3) Funding EPSOs on the margins through state incentive to remove financial barriers for learners; and (4) Prioritizing equity and removing burdensome admission and administrative barriers to participation. [For the first brief in this series, "Practical Guidance for Aligning Career Pathways to Labor Market Data in the Time of COVID-19," see ED613575.]

Before COVID, the shortage of qualified, skilled teachers was among the top challenges facing education leaders. And with the stress of the pandemic, survey data showed that almost half of the public school teachers who left the profession since March 2020 cite COVID-19 as the main reason. As school systems ramp up hiring for next fall, concrete data on actual teacher turnover is scarce. To fill in that gap, Education Resource Strategies (ERS) worked with six district partners -- all large, urban districts, spread across the country -- to understand their actual teacher turnover patterns in 2020. In the six districts ERS studied, teacher turnover declined from an average of 17.3 percent over the prior three years, to 12.6 percent in 2020. Students in the highest-poverty schools experienced the greatest "increase" in staff stability compared to prior years. With new federal funding, state, district, and school leaders should be exploring how to use stimulus dollars in ways that improve the teaching job. Districts and schools can build toward making teachers' jobs more rewarding, collaborative, and sustainable by investing in the kinds of structures and conditions that matter most -- such as competitive compensation with opportunities to grow over time, supportive school leadership, sufficient time for collaboration, and teaching loads that make it possible to build relationships with their students and adjust approaches to meet their needs.

Childrens' learning has been massively disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing the need for more opportunities for differentiated, high-quality learning, stronger relationships with the adults in their school, and streamlined access to social-emotional support -- especially for the country's lowest-income students, Black and Latinx students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. To support these redesign efforts, especially in light of the $122 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER II and ESSER III) provided by the American Rescue Plan, we have identified five "power strategies" (Empowering, Adaptable Instruction, Time & Attention, The Teaching Job, Relationships & Social-Emotional Supports, and Family & Community Partnerships) to accelerate equity-focused recovery and redesign. Our Start Here Series features emerging examples of districts and schools around the country putting the power strategies to work. As district leaders begin to plan the use of their federal ESSER funding, state leaders must support state education policies that offer sustainable, long-term solutions that enable districts to fundamentally alter how they provide instruction, especially for students with the most need. "States Start Here" builds on the Start Here Series by detailing how state leaders can empower districts with the flexibility to implement and invest in the kinds of changes driven by our power strategies -- especially in Time & Attention. While state policies play a critical role across all the power strategies, policy areas related to instructional time and class size are particularly critical. We urge states to revisit current policies around amount of instructional time, class size limits, seat time, and more to enable districts to expand and vary the time and individualized attention students receive, while still holding districts accountable for strong student outcomes. In this paper, we discuss what strategic practice around instructional time and attention looks like, what the state role could be to enable these practices, and what other strategies state leaders might consider as they promote learning acceleration.

In a dedicated effort to build high-quality, equitable career pathways Advance CTE, in partnership with Education Strategy Group through JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s "New Skills ready network," released "Practical Guidance for Aligning Career Pathways to Labor Market Data in the Time of COVID-19." This policy brief is the first in a series designed to help build better pathways and offers promising practices for enhancing the career preparation ecosystem by leveraging labor market information (LMI) to align programs to high-skill, high-wage and in-demand occupations. This brief offers state and local leaders a steady path forward to gathering and making LMI actionable: (1) Continue to make data-informed decisions about which career pathways to build and support and which ones to transform or phase out; (2) Address equity within any LMI tools, supports and decisions; (3) Take this opportunity to streamline existing labor market data to make it more usable and accessible for policymakers, local partners, instructors and learners themselves; and (4) Build capacity within the system to improve labor market data literacy.

For multilingual learners (MLs) and their families, the COVID-19 pandemic has had disproportionate and inter-related consequences for their economic stability, educational opportunities and outcomes, and social, emotional, physical, and mental well-being. Supportive learning environments and conditions may help students overcome the negative effects of adverse experiences, such as those MLs faced during the pandemic. As in-person instruction continues, schools and districts should continue to take action to support the social and emotional well-being of MLs. This publication examines the areas of impact of MLs and COVID-19 and recommendations of how they can be supported in schools.

Work-based learning faces significant changes in delivery in the face of a global pandemic that has severely limited physical access to schools and businesses. These changes have forced school leaders and employers to acknowledge pre-existing inequities that perpetuate historical barriers and racial discrimination and keep marginalized learner populations from accessing high-quality work-based learning experiences. This resource from Advance CTE provides a five step framework to address equity gaps in work-based learning by building a statewide infrastructure that enables cross-agency collaboration and prioritizes relationship building, data and accountability, quality, and extending social and cultural capital. Innovative initiatives and programs in seven states and two cities are featured that address five action areas: (1) establish a statewide vision for equity in work-based learning; (2) enable intermediary organizations to equitably expand work-based learning; (3) use data to advance equity and program quality; (4) engage and support employers to offer high-quality and inclusive work-based learning experiences; and (5) scale successful programs using an equity lens. This resource was developed through JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s "New Skills ready network," a partnership of Advance CTE and Education Strategy Group.