STANDARDS MOVEMENT GAINING STEAM: Duncan Announces Plan to Commit Up to $350 Million for Assessments Linked to Common Standards Article
June 29, 2009Earlier this month, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) announced that forty-six states and the District of Columbia have signed on to a joint effort to develop a common core of state standards in English language arts and mathematics for grades K–12.
“STRENGTHENING AMERICA’S COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL REFORM”: Alliance President Among Witnesses to Appear Before Congressional Committee Article
May 18, 2009On May 12, the House Committee on Education and Labor held a hearing to examine how policies for addressing the high school dropout crisis and improving graduation rates can strengthen America’s economic competitiveness.
ACTION REQUIRED: New Alliance Brief Calls for New Federal Approach to Improve the Nation’s Lowest-Performing High Schools Article
May 04, 2009Current approaches under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to improve the nation’s lowest-performing high schools do not meet the needs of the students who attend these schools, the communities in which they are located, or the long-term economic health of the United States.
STRENGTHENING AMERICA’S COMPETITIVENESS THROUGH COMMON ACADEMIC STANDARDS: House Committee Looks for Ways to Support State-Led Efforts to Produce Common Standards Article
May 04, 2009Last week, witnesses appearing before the House Education and Labor Committee described an effort underway in states to develop common academic standards that would prepare all students to compete in today’s global economy.
MEANINGFUL MEASUREMENT: Alliance Conference Examines the Role of Assessments in Improving High School Education in the Twenty-First Century Article
April 20, 2009The growing support for a state-led effort to develop common, national standards, the provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that encourage states to improve their standards and assessments, and the upcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have led policymakers at all levels to pay increasing attention to the “next generation” of assessments.
Duncan Proposes No Changes to Recent High School Graduation Rate Regulations Article
April 06, 2009In October 2008, the U.S. Department of Education released new federal regulations and guidance on Title I that changed the No Child Left Behind Act’s requirements related to high school graduation rate data collection, calculation, and accountability.
NEW ALLIANCE PUBLICATION EXAMINES FEDERAL GRADUATION RATE POLICY: Brief Reviews Recent U.S. Department of Education Regulations and Their Impact on States and the Nation Article
March 23, 2009A new brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education describes how federal policy has progressed from early attempts to simply calculate an agreed-upon high school graduation rate to present-day efforts aimed at using commonly defined rates as part of a refined accountability system to drive school improvement.
Every Student Counts: The Role of Federal Policy in Improving Graduation Rate Accountability Report/Fact Sheet
March 16, 2009As the poor performance of U.S. high schools has been acknowledged and come to the forefront of education policy debates over the past several years, so too has a recognition of the need to improve graduation rate calculations and accountability for increasing those rates.
SLAM DUNK-AN: Senate Unanimously Confirms Arne Duncan as Next U.S. Secretary of Education Article
January 26, 2009By a voice vote on January 20, the U.S. Senate confirmed Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan as U.S. Secretary of Education.
No Child Left Behind
Alliance President Bob Wise on the Seventh Anniversary of the No Child Left Behind Act Article
January 12, 2009In his statement on the seventh anniversary of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, said that the nation can celebrate NCLB for setting a national goal of higher education standards for all students and spotlighting problem areas, but stressed that the full potential of the law has yet to be realized.
No Child Left Behind