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Tools & Playbooks


Tool
Rainbow colored abacus interspersed with dollar bills
Tool
| The tool is designed to cost out the elements needed to establish a community school relative to a typical public school, guiding users through several steps to help them estimate costs. The tool was designed with input from national and local community school practitioners, researchers, and policymakers.
Tool
RCA logo
Tool
| Performance assessments provide students with authentic ways to demonstrate learning, cultivate academic knowledge and 21st-century skills, and prepare for college-level work. School, district, and network leaders should use quality criteria to examine their performance-based assessment policies and structures to foster deeper learning for all students.
Tool
Teal placeholder image
Tool
| Because performance assessments surface examples of how students use their academic and nonacademic learning in authentic situations, they can help admission officers at higher education institutions more fully understand applicants. But a college’s abilities to effectively use reliable evidence of student learning in the admission process depends on how they frame the “ask” for these materials.
Policy Playbook
Smiling teacher in a yellow jacket sits at the front of a classroom
Policy Playbook
| The Partnership for the Future of Learning offers a set of strategies to recruit, prepare, develop, and retain high-quality teachers and bring greater racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity to the profession. This in-depth playbook includes examples of legislation and research-based policies, a guide to talking about teacher shortages and strengthening the profession, and publications for further reading.
Interactive Tool
Student at desk wearing mask
Interactive Tool
| This collection of resources brings together recent and rigorous science to inform school COVID safety efforts, supporting pre-k–12 educators, administrators, and policymakers with evidence-based approaches to provide and sustain safe, in-person instruction for students.
Tool
Woman speaking with other adults in group setting
Tool
| The Districts Advancing Racial Equity tool provides a practical and accessible resource for understanding, assessing, and advancing racial equity within school districts. The tool captures research-informed, high-leverage aspects of schooling that school leaders can use to create systems that build on the strengths of and respond to the needs of students of color.
Interactive Tool
Map of California school districts
Interactive Tool
| How are California school districts and counties impacted by the state’s persistent teacher shortages? An interactive map enables policymakers, advocates, parents, caregivers, and others to answer that question by exploring data in critical areas, such as the percentage of teachers on substandard credentials, the share of beginning teachers, and the rates of teacher turnover—a critical factor driving shortages.
Interactive Tool
Interactive map of equity indicators
Interactive Tool
| The use of multiple measures in statewide school accountability and improvement systems under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers states, districts, and schools the chance to gather and respond to information that is meaningfully connected to student opportunity and success. As policymakers, educators, parents, community-based organizations, and other education stakeholders implement ESSA, they can use the information in this interactive tool to identify and target their efforts to ensure that students furthest from opportunity can graduate from high school fully prepared for college, career, and civic engagement.
Policy Playbook
Community Schools Playbook cover
Policy Playbook
| This resource, from the Partnership for the Future of Learning, provides a comprehensive policy guide for implementing and sustaining community schools. It includes detailed information on the four key pillars of comprehensive community schools and features communications and policy development resources, including model legislative language and policy examples from across the United States.
Interactive Tool
Understanding Teacher Shortages Interactive Map
Interactive Tool
| How states experience the teacher shortage depends on their unique mix of policies, conditions, and even cost of living. This interactive map provides a state-by-state look at key indicators of teacher supply and demand and the equitable distribution of teachers. States and the District of Columbia receive a teaching attractiveness rating, based on compensation, teacher turnover, working conditions, and qualifications, and a teacher equity rating, based on the distribution of uncertified and inexperienced teachers.