Defining, Measuring, and Improving School Quality

FutureEd: Independent Analysis, Innovative Ideas

With student achievement in the nation’s elementary and secondary schools in decline and the Trump administration prioritizing its goals of downgrading the U.S. Department of Education and diminishing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in schools, it is an important moment for state and local education leaders to try to focus on the foundational work of school improvement.

But strengthening schools requires measuring their performance—to identify schools in need of improvement and to gauge whether reforms are working—and there’s growing evidence that that schools today are routinely rated in ways that ignore key contributors to student achievement.

FutureEd has done two projects to help state and local education policymakers address these challenges—providing them with strategies for ensuring that students develop the knowledge and habits of mind that allow them to think critically, communicate effectively, and acquire new knowledge and skills in a fast-changing society.

The first outlines a new, more comprehensive approach to measuring school quality that goes beyond test scores to capture a range of other school qualities that drive student success. The second is an agenda for improving student achievement that has the potential to enjoy significant bipartisan support—even in today’s hyper-polarized environment.

Report

Quality Check: The New, Best Way to Measure School Performance

In FutureEd’s latest report, published in collaboration with the Colorado-based Keystone Policy Center, Senior Fellow Lynn Olson draws on decades of research to assemble a new model for measuring a school’s capacity to raise student achievement—one with elements that have been demonstrated to improve student academic outcomes but are often overlooked in today’s measurement and accountability systems.

The report explores how policymakers can put the new model into practice to drive school improvement. And it examines the strengths and weaknesses of commercial school ratings and the school measurement model in the United Kingdom.

Read the report

Go deeper:

Lynn Olson and FutureEd Director Thomas Toch propose a blueprint for rethinking state standardized tests that maintains its role in policymaking while responding to its critics.
Toch and Olson explore the growing movement to include new equity indicators into the school-performance equation.
Toch and former Research Advisor Raegan Miller examine annual school climate and student engagement surveys as a tool for school improvement in large California school districts.

Analysis

A New, Bipartisan Agenda for Raising Student Achievement

In an essay in the Washington Monthly, Toch points to the urgency of improving the performance of the nation’s 100,000 charter and traditional public schools where 90 percent of the nation’s students are enrolled and outlines state and local strategies for raising student achievement that could form the basis of a new bipartisan school-improvement agenda. Among them: paying teachers based on the demand for their skills, expanding access to advanced education, and making tutoring a regular part of the school day.

Read the Analysis

Go deeper:

FutureEd Senior Fellow Peg Tyre profiles three school districts that have embraced a new model of gifted education that focuses on both equity and rigor.
We highlight three successful tutoring models in public education and explore how they can be sustained without federal pandemic aid.
Toch writes in The New York Times on solving teacher shortages through targeted pay strategies.

teaching Profession

By the Numbers

67%

Low-poverty districts that trained teachers on AI in fall 2024

39%

High-poverty districts that trained teachers on AI in fall 2024

Source: RAND

The Churn

The latest leadership changes in the education sector

Aneesh Sohoni, former CEO of One Million Degrees, has begun his new role as CEO of Teach For America.

Matthew Chingos, who was the vice president for work, education, and labor at the Urban Institute, is taking a one-year leave to serve as a fellow with the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Get these updates in your inbox every week!

See More & Subscribe

View this email in your browser.

FutureEd at Georgetown University

200 Massachusetts Ave NW

Washington, DC 20001

Add us to your address book

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from all FutureEd emails.