LPI Blog

Across the country, more than eight million students are chronically absent, meaning they miss nearly one month of school each year. ESSA creates an opportunity for states and districts to monitor and address chronic absences as a key strategy for creating greater educational equity. This blog, part of the Realizing ESSA’s Promise series, provides examples and guidance on how states can equip districts, communities, and schools to take a comprehensive approach to improving attendance.

The Every Student Succeeds Act broadens the notion of student and school success beyond standardized tests and recognizes the importance of schools providing critical supports for students. This blog, from our series, Realizing ESSA’s Promise, explores how states are leveraging ESSA’s support for non-academic indicators to identify disparities and then implement research-based policies and practices to address identified needs.

Fifty years after the Kerner Report, our nation still struggles with persistent disparities in child welfare, educational opportunities, and economic outcomes—but there is still hope for change. In this Education and the Path to Equity blog, Christopher Edley, President of the Opportunity Institute, and Linda Darling-Hammond discuss the potential of community schools to overcome the entrenched inequities of today’s education system.

Education has the potential to be the "great equalizer" in society — mitigating the impacts of poverty and race. But that potential has yet to be realized in America. In this Education and the Path to Equity blog, Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director with the New York State Alliance for Quality Education, discussed the progress made in investing in the right of every student to learn well.

Fifty years ago, in his book, Rich Schools, Poor Schools: The Promise of Equal Educational Opportunity, Arthur Wise noted the glaring inequities in public school funding and suggested that examination by the courts would reveal they were unconstitutional. In his blog, Wise describes advocates’ efforts to redress those wrongs through a judicial strategy, legislatures’ responses to court rulings and judicial orders, where we stand now, and what remains to be done to achieve equal educational opportunity.

As the US looks for ways to reduce school shootings, research shows that initiatives that reduce suspension, expulsion, and intervention from law enforcement and that focus on inclusion and social emotional learning show promise that arming teachers and expelling students do not.

Richmond, VA’s diversity is a point of strength, but the vast majority of its schools are still segregated by race and income. In the latest Education and the Path to Equity blog, Anne Holton writes about that reality and what one school is doing to change it. Holton is Visiting Professor of Public Policy and Education at George Mason University and former Virginia Secretary of Education.

In the 50 years since the Kerner Report was released, our country has struggled to fulfill its mission — and perhaps nowhere has this fight been more evident than in our classrooms, observes Center for American Progress President and CEO Neera Tanden. In the latest Education and the Path to Equity blog Tanden says we must invest in every school and take decisive steps toward integration.

Much was accomplished by the civil rights revolution, writes Gary Orfield, Distinguished Research Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. But gains have been lost and times have changed. In this Education and the Path to Equity blog, Orfield says we need a new agenda for a more complex society and a new vision of integration in a century where we will all soon be minorities.

In this installment of the Education and the Path to Equity blog series, John B. King Jr., President and CEO of the Education Trust and former U.S. Secretary of Education, observes that 50 years after the Kerner Commission, the striking disparities in opportunity that still exist throughout our nation are a reflection of choices that we have made as a society. As a nation, we are not acting on what we know is in the best interest of our children.