What's New

This January 30, 2012 Huffington Post blog by CEP President Jack Jennings reviews past national movements to improve schools and proposes a new effort where a good education would become a civil right for all.  The blog summarizes Jennings’ January 2012 paper Reflections on a Half-Century of School Reform: Why Have We Fallen Short and Where Do We Go From Here?

Upon his retirement from the leadership of CEP, Jack Jennings reviews in this paper the three major school reform efforts of the last 50 years, proposes an agenda focused on the classroom, and advocates for the creation of a federal civil right to a good education to advance that agenda.

This paper by free lance writer Anne Lewis describes the beginning and the development of the Center on Education Policy from 1995 to 2012.

This report, based on a fall 2011 survey of 35 Common Core State Standards-adopting states (including the District of Columbia), examines states’ progress in transitioning the new standards.  The vast majority of the states in the survey believe that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are more rigorous than previous state academic standards in math and English language arts.  The vast majority of survey states are taking steps to familiarize state and district officials with the new standards and to align curriculum and assessments.  However, most of the states in the survey do not expect to fully implement the standards until 2014-15 or later.  In addition, a majority of the responding states caution that having adequate resources is a major challenge to full implementation of the CCSS.

The 2012 Public Education Primer highlights important and sometimes little-known facts concerning the U.S. education system, how things have changed over time, and how they may change in the future. Together these facts provide a comprehensive picture of the nation’s public schools, including data about students, teachers, funding, achievement, management, and non-academic services.

Before Christmas, Jack Jennings, CEP’s president, submitted the following blog to the Huffington Post. This blog discusses the disappointing results from urban school districts on the National Assessment of Educational Progress that were released in December. He suggests a link between those results and the financial problems being experienced by American schools.

This report analyzes the NCLB waiver applications submitted by the first 11 states to the U.S. Department of Education in November 2011. Among the findings in the report are that these states are proposing new and complex accountability systems which they assert will respond to local needs and better identify schools that need assistance.  Also, nearly all the state applications would base accountability decisions on the achievement of just two student groups: all students and a single “disadvantaged” group. This is a departure from the current NCLB policy, which holds schools accountable for the performance of numerous subgroups of students, ranging from major racial and ethnic groups to students with disabilities.

In the fall of 2011, CEP surveyed state education agency officials about the need for waivers of the accountability provisions under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act. The state officials surveyed said the waivers are greatly needed and generally agree that the four principles that must be met in order for a state to receive a waiver will improve student learning in their state.

This report updates previous CEP research with data from the 2010-11 school year on the number of schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The estimated percentage of all U.S. schools not making AYP was 48% in 2011, an all-time high and an increase from 39% in 2010. The report also provides six years of trends in the percentage of schools in all 50 states, D.C., and the nation not making AYP, using official numbers from the State Consolidated Performance Reports submitted to the U.S. Department of Education.

This 10th installment of CEP’s annual study of high school exit exams and other assessments finds that fewer states are requiring students to pass a high school exit exam, though testing in other areas has increased. The report, based on a survey of all 50 state departments of education, discusses state policies associated with high school exit exams, college entrance exams (such as the ACT or SAT), and college and career readiness assessments.

State Profiles for Assessment Policies Through 2010-11

This November 23, 2011 Huffington Post blog written by CEP’s president Jack Jennings highlights a recent study of the education systems in Shanghai (China), Finland, Japan, Singapore, and Ontario (Canada), and discusses what lessons can be learned from these countries to help improve public education in the United States.

On November 9, 2011, a commentary written by Jack Jennings, CEP’s president, appeared in the Debate Club of U.S. News and World Report. That magazine had asked him to comment on a recent report concluding that American teachers were over-paid. The commentary rebuts that conclusion.

This report, based on a nationally representative sample of school districts, examines school districts’ perceptions of key requirements and early school district implementation of the Title I school improvement grants programs funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

On October 24, the Huffington Post carried a blog written by Jack Jennings, CEP’s president and CEO, on the views of the Republican presidential aspirants on the role of the federal government in education.

The Dallas Morning News asked Jack Jennings, CEP’s president and CEO, to write an article advising the city’s school board on what it should look for in a new local school superintendent. The article appeared in the newspaper on October 7, 2011.

This report examines testing data from 40 states and the District of Columbia from 2002 through 2009 and finds that while high school scores on state English language arts and math tests rose in most states, smaller proportions of states made gains in high school compared with 4th and 8th grades. State testing data also show a lack of progress and widening gaps between various groups of high school students at the advanced level in many states.

A supplemental appendix with listings of where states fall within the various analyses for this study is available as well as one-page profiles of state-specific performance trends at the advanced achievement levels for nine states. 

On October 5^th, 2011, Progress Lags in High School, Especially for Advanced Achievers, CEP’s latest report on student achievement, was the topic of a taped discussion sponsored by Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. Jack Jennings, CEP’s president and CEO was one of the discussants.

Poverty Single Most Important Factor in High School Achievement from Spotlight on Vimeo.

CEP Report Findings on High School Achievement from Spotlight on Vimeo.

Common Standards Impact on Future from Spotlight on Vimeo.

This document answers some frequently asked questions about the U. S. Secretary of Education’s authority to grant waivers of Elementary and Secondary Education Act requirements, including how that process works under current provisions, which requirements can currently be waived, and how often this authority has been used in the past.

Education Writers Association's executive director Caroline Hendrie talks with Diane Stark Rentner of the Center on Education Policy about CEP’s report, Common Core State Standards: Progress and Challenges in School Districts' Implementation, and how school districts are transitioning to the Common Core State Standards.

This document answers some frequently asked questions about accountability plans that states are required to develop under the No Child Left Behind Act. These plans outline each state’s policies for implementing NCLB’s accountability provisions and timelines for meeting student achievement goals, including the goal of all students reaching proficiency by school year 2013-14. U.S. Department of Education approval of state amendments to these accountability plans is another way for federal government to give states some flexibility in implementing certain NCLB provisions.

This report, based on a nationally representative sample of school districts, examines school districts’ perceptions and early implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).  The report finds that approximately three-fifths of the districts in states that have adopted the CCSS agree that the new standards in math and English language arts are more rigorous than the ones they are replacing, and a similar proportion of districts expect the CCSS to improve students’ skills in these subjects.  The survey results also show that district officials see relatively little resistance to the standards from parents, community members, and local educators, with only 10% of districts in the adopting states considering resistance from teachers and principals to be a major challenge in implementing the standards, and just 5 percent view resistance from parents and community members as a major challenge.  However, adequate funding to implement all aspects of the CCSS was viewed as a major challenge by 76% of districts in CCSS-adopting states, and as a minor challenge among 21% of such districts.

This September 14, 2011 Huffington Post blog, written by Jack Jennings, discusses the Center on Education Policy Report, Common Core State Standards:  Progress and Challenges in School Districts’ Implementation.

This August 30, 2011 Huffington Post blog by Jack Jennings discusses how teacher pay in the United States compares to other countries.

This report compares achievement trends since 2002 (or a more recent year in some states) on state reading and math tests for Title I students and students not participating in Title I. The largest of the federal aid programs for K-12 schools, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 supports extra instructional services for low-performing students in low-income schools and for all students in the highest-poverty schools. Generally, achievement on state reading and math tests has improved in recent years for students participating in the Title I program in most of the 19 states with comparable data. Further, gaps between Title I participants and non-participants have also narrowed more often than they have widened since 2002, although trends were more positive at grades 8 and high school than at grade 4.

A one-page profile of state-specific performance trends for Title I and non-Title I students is available for each of the 19 states included in the study.

View 2008-2009 State Profiles

This report examines a decade’s worth of research on school vouchers and concludes that vouchers have had no clear positive effect on student academic achievement, and mixed outcomes for students overall. Effects on graduation rates, parental satisfaction, public school achievement and cost to taxpayers are discussed. The report also notes that much of this research has been carried out or sponsored by pro-voucher organizations, signaling a particular need for scrutiny. In addition to this research review, the report describes voucher programs currently in existence, summarizes major court cases and referenda on vouchers from the past ten years, and reflects on changes in the voucher landscape. The report serves as an update to CEP’s paper School Vouchers: What We Know and Don't Know…and How We Could Learn More, released in 2000.

In this Huffington Post blog, posted on July 27, 2011, Jack Jennings reviews the evolution of pro-voucher arguments over last 50 years, discusses these findings in light of CEP’s recent report on vouchers, and calls for greater efforts to improve public schools, which is where 90% of students attend school today.