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This report, which is based on a fall 2011 survey of state education agency officials, finds that state spending cuts for K-12 education seemed to have bottomed out in many states, although some states are still strapped for funds.  The report also examines states’ efforts to implement the four school reforms they promised to address in their applications for federal stimulus funds.

This report, which is based on a fall 2011 survey of state education agency officials, finds that state funds for state education agency operations are being cut or level-funded in most states despite an improved outlook for overall education spending at the state level.  To make up for the loss in this operational funding, most state education agencies are reducing their staffing costs.  However, many states are maintaining, and sometimes increasing, state agency staff assigned to school reform efforts.

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.

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.