Policy & Research

High Schools for Equity documents the practices and outcomes of five urban high schools in California that do an extraordinary job of preparing their students for success in higher education, productive careers, and a fulfilling life. The schools, which are non-selective in their admissions and...

In 2008, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) invited a team of researchers, including the authors, to study schools within the city, including elementary schools that were, like those profiled in High Schools for Equity, achieving strong educational outcomes with low-...

The Nellie Mae Education Foundation (Nellie Mae) has invested in connecting the dots across diverse areas of research on the optimum conditions for student learning through the Students at the Center initiative. This work has shaped the foundation’s definition of student-centered learning—the...

A district’s graduate profile organizes a comprehensive range of expectations for student learning into a clear, cohesive vision of college and career readiness. By starting with the end in mind—a high school graduate who is prepared for postsecondary learning and the 21st-century workplace—a...

This special issue furthers the conversation begun in the August 2014 of edition of Education Policy Analysis Archives in the article Accountability for College and Career Readiness: Developing a New Paradigm by Linda Darling-Hammond, Gene Wilhoit, and Linda Pittenger. That paper posits that as...

This paper seeks to clarify and spells out the responsibilities of policy makers to create the conditions for an effective accountability system that produces substantial improvements in student learning, strengthens the teaching profession, and provides transparency of results to the public....