LPI Blog

We live in an era of extreme income inequality and one of the places it’s hitting hardest is in our schools. That’s because inequity is hard-wired into our school-funding systems. Linda Darling-Hammond and Jeff Raikes explain the hard wiring and discuss what we can do to shift direction and ensure that every child receives a quality education.

Historically, U.S. schools have been rated based largely on student performance on an annual summative test. With the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state accountability systems now feature additional measures of student and school success, including academic growth. These factors are critical if we are to create accountability systems that recognize the contributions that schools make to student progress, while reducing bias against educators and schools serving students in diverse, high-poverty communities.