Briefs

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  Brief

  Encouraging Social and Emotional Learning: Next Steps for States

  Jun 15 2018

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  The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides an opportunity for states to include measures of students social, emotional, and academic development when assessing outcomes. This brief offers recommendations for ways state agencies can encourage social and emotional learning in schools to support the whole child, through their systems of accountability and continuous improvement under ESSA.

  Topics Accountability and Improvement, The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Deeper Learning
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  Brief

  Diversifying the Teaching Profession Through High-Retention Pathways

  Desiree Carver-Thomas

  Apr 19 2018

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  More and more states and districts are recognizing that recruiting and retaining teachers of color can help meet their students' needs while also helping to curb critical teacher shortages. But prospective teachers of color encounter unique barriers to entering and staying in the profession. High-retention pathways—combining high-quality clinically rich preparation with financial support—can be especially effective at reversing those trends.

  Topics Educator Quality, Educator Quality: Recruitment & Retention​, Equitable Resources​ and Access
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  Brief

  Education and the Path to One Nation, Indivisible

  Linda Darling-Hammond

  Feb 27 2018

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  In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (also known as the Kerner Commission) to examine racial division and disparities in the United States. In 1968, the Kerner Commission released a report concluding that the nation was “moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Without major social changes, the Commission warned, the U.S. faced a “system of apartheid” in its major cities. Today, 50 years after the report was issued, that prediction characterizes most of our large urban areas, where intensifying segregation and concentrated poverty have collided with disparities in school funding to reinforce educational inequality.

  Topics Equitable Resources​ and Access, Accountability and Improvement
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  Brief

  Understaffed and Underprepared: California Districts Report Ongoing Teacher Shortages

  Leib Sutcher

  Desiree Carver-Thomas

  Linda Darling-Hammond

  Feb 05 2018

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  For the 2017-18 school year, 80% of California districts reported shortages of qualified teachers and 82% reported hiring underprepared teachers, according to an LPI survey completed by 25 California school districts. Those districts collectively serve a quarter of the state’s students and include urban, suburban, and rural areas. This brief examines how districts experienced teacher supply in the fall of 2017.

  Topic Educator Quality
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  Brief

  Money and Freedom: The Impact of California’s School Finance Reform

  Rucker Johnson

  Sean Tanner

  Feb 02 2018

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  This study of California’s recent major school finance reform, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), is among the first to provide evidence of LCFF’s impacts on student outcomes. We found that LCFF-induced increases in school spending led to significant increases in high school graduation rates and academic achievement, particularly among children from low-income families. The evidence suggests that money targeted to students’ needs can make a significant difference in student outcomes and can narrow achievement gaps.

  Topics Equitable Resources​ and Access, Accountability and Improvement
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  Brief

  Building an Early Learning System that Works: Next Steps for California

  Hanna Melnick

  Beth Meloy

  Madelyn Gardner

  Marjorie Wechsler

  Anna Maier

  Jan 23 2018

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  This brief provides California policymakers with recommendations on how to improve access to high-quality early childhood education (ECE) for all children. It is based on a report that examines the ECE practices in 10 counties that vary by region, population density, and child care affordability. The report upon which this brief is based describes the landscape of ECE at the local level as it is shaped by federal and state policies, illuminates challenges that counties face in providing access to high-quality programs, and highlights promising practices.

  Topic Early Childhood Learning
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  Brief

  The Promise of Performance Assessments: Innovations in High School Learning and Higher Education Admissions

  Roneeta Guha

  Tony Wagner

  Linda Darling-Hammond

  Terri Taylor

  Diane Curtis

  Jan 18 2018

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  This brief describes performance assessments and their value for guiding and evaluating high school students' learning, as well as informing colleges and universities about what students know and can do. It explores state and local policies that support the use of such assessments, along with emerging higher education efforts to incorporate them in college admission, placement, and advising. It discusses steps that can help ensure that performance assessments are high-quality, rigorous, and well understood and that can facilitate the use of these assessments in higher education decisions.

  Topics Deeper Learning: Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment​, Deeper Learning: College, Career & Civic Participation, Deeper Learning
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  Brief

  Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy: A Review of the Evidence

  Anna Maier

  Julia Daniel

  Jeannie Oakes

  Dec 14 2017

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  Education policymakers working to address the impacts of growing economic and racial inequality on students often look to community schools as an effective approach for supporting students and their families in communities facing concentrated poverty. This brief and related report synthesizes findings from 143 rigorous research studies and finds that community schools can improve outcomes for all students, especially those facing lack of access to high-quality schools and out-of-school barriers to learning.

  Topics Equitable Resources​ and Access, Accountability and Improvement, Deeper Learning, Deeper Learning: College, Career & Civic Participation, Deeper Learning: School Organization & Design
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  Brief

  Teacher Turnover: Why It Matters and What We Can Do About It

  Desiree Carver-Thomas

  Linda Darling-Hammond

  Aug 16 2017

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  Without changes in current policies, U.S. teacher shortages are projected to grow in the coming years. Teacher turnover is an important source of these shortages. About 8% of teachers leave the profession each year, two-thirds of them for reasons other than retirement. Another 8% shift to different schools each year. In addition to aggravating teacher shortages, high turnover rates lower student achievement and are costly for schools. This brief examines turnover trends and causes and concludes that policies to stem teacher turnover should target compensation, teacher preparation and support, and teaching conditions.

  Topics Educator Quality: Recruitment & Retention​, Educator Quality, Equitable Resources​ and Access
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  Brief

  Identifying Schools for Support and Intervention: Using Decision Rules to Support Accountability and Improvement Under ESSA

  Linda Darling-Hammond

  Jessica Cardichon

  Hanna Melnick

  Jun 13 2017

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  Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, states are using a new approach to accountability based on multiple indicators of educational opportunity and performance and can decide how to use these measures to identify schools for intervention and support and to encourage systems of continuous improvement. The decision rule approach can encourage greater attention to each of the measures, offer more transparency about how school performance factors into identification, and support more strategic interventions than those informed only by a single rating, ranking, or grade. This brief describes five options for using decision rules that are designed to meet ESSA’s requirements and support states' use of systems that encourage continuous improvement across all schools.

  Topics The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Accountability and Improvement

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