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On September 5, President Trump announced his plan to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Since it was implemented, the DACA program has ensured that nearly 800,000 children of immigrants—many of whom have no recollection of any country other than the U.S.—can safely attend school, earn degrees, and become contributing members of the country in which they were raised.
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In this re-posting of a Q&A first published as part of the Hunt Institute’s blog, The Intersection, LPI President Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond describes the opportunity ESSA presents to advance educational equity in our nation’s schools and offers examples of how states are capitalizing on ESSA requirements to address longstanding disparities and better support marginalized youth.
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We at the Learning Policy Institute denounce the hatred that motivated recent events, while we mourn for those engaged in peaceful protest who were hurt by the senseless violence and for Heather Heyer, who lost her life. And we remember with respect and deep gratitude the many others over hundreds of years who courageously stood and often gave their lives in the cause of civil rights and social justice.
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California’s complex early childhood education landscape is difficult for parents, caregivers, and providers to navigate. The system also remains underfunded, with a significant gap between the needs of California families and the availability of care. This blog draws on findings from LPI’s report, Understanding California’s Early Care and Education System, to make the case for a more coordinated and better resourced system for early learning.
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In addition to providing students and families with much-needed services and supports, well-implemented community schools can be a successful strategy for whole-school transformation. That's the finding of a recently released brief, Community Schools: An Evidence-Based Strategy for Equitable School Improvement, published jointly by the Learning Policy Institute and the National Education Policy Center. This LPI Blog post features a Q&A with the study authors, who detail their approach and findings, describe the four interdependent features of community schools, and discuss how well-implemented community schools can be used as a targeted and comprehensive intervention for school improvement under ESSA.
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CTE helps prepare young people for success in both postsecondary education and a range of high-wage, high-skill careers and is a critical engine for our economy. Right now, however, our nation is facing a serious shortage of CTE teachers that undermines quality and limits course access. This blog details how reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act creates a vehicle to address shortages and strengthen CTE offerings.
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Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia reported having shortages of special education teachers in the 2016–17 school year. As a result, school districts have filled those vacancies with underprepared teachers. Strategic investments in evidence-based programs can alleviate this perennial shortage. This blog highlights programs and state-level strategies to attract, prepare, and retain enough special education teachers to meet school and district needs.
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The Union Public Schools district in Tulsa, Oklahoma shows what can be achieved when a public school system takes the time to invest in a culture of high expectations, recruit top-flight professionals, and develop ties between schools and the community. From kindergarten through high school students get a state-of-the-art science education in a district where more than one third of the students are Latino, many of them English language learners, and 70% receive free or reduced-price lunch.
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Strategic selection and use of performance indicators can illuminate disparities in our schools and focus attention and resources on rectifying long-standing inequities. This report explores how states can use a multiple-measure accountability system to improve educational opportunities and outcomes for underserved youth and begin to dismantle the school-to-prison-pipeline.
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California’s State Board of Education has an opportunity to leave behind one of the most unfair and problematic features of No Child Left Behind (NCLB): the way it calculates English learners’ progress for purposes of accountability. In doing so, however, the state will still need to address how it will focus on, understand, and support the nearly 1.4 million public students classified as English learners.
