Assuring Student Achievement: Strengthen America through Education Reforms

This Opportunity 08 position paper advises that the next President of the United States should focus on lifting the achievement levels of our nation's schoolchildren. It recommends that the new President should mount a determined effort, together with states and local school districts, to boost the academic performance of low achievers by: (1) requiring underperforming public schools that receive federal aid to improve the academic performance of chronic low achievers; (2) insisting that individual school improvement strategies be derived from sound evidence about what actually works; (3) joining with states in providing grants for schools to improve the academic performance of low achievers; and (4) penalizing low-performing schools that decline to devise and implement credible school improvement plans by cutting their share of their district's federal Title I grant by 25 percent. The paper presents case studies of San Jose, CA, Hamilton County, TN, and Mount Vernon, NY, where their school districts have, respectively, registered achievement gains utilizing more targeted strategies, given educators incentives, and trained its sights on reading and literacy. (Includes a list of additional resources.)