The Center for American Progress’ K-12 Education team is committed to developing policies for a new education agenda that is rooted in the idea of opportunity for all, with equity in access at the center. This agenda focuses on five key components: (1) applying an explicit race equity lens to policy development; (2) preparing all students for college, civic engagement, and the future workforce; (3) modernizing and elevating the teaching profession; (4) dramatically increasing investments in public schools and improving the equity of existing investments; and (5) bringing a balanced approach to charter school policy.
All students deserve access to a high-quality education, but years of underfunding have undermined many aspects of school quality, especially in schools predominantly serving students from families with low resources and students who are Black, Indigenous, and other people of color. These students’ communities were hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, making these inequalities much worse.
There are valid criticisms about the current structure of state standardized testing in schools; the solution is not to get rid of these assessments but rather to design them differently.
Technology and artificial intelligence can vastly improve the types of assessments teachers use to guide students in their learning.
This fact sheet outlines the details of a proposed grant program that would increase recruitment and retention of highly qualified educators in schools with the highest teacher turnover.
In these comments, the Center for American Progress provides support for the secretary’s six proposed priorities and offers some additional recommendations to further strengthen them.
The Education Department has an opportunity to reimagine the policymaking process by committing to incorporating student voice.
As K-12 districts and schools plan for recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is essential that providing social and emotional supports for educators is a key part of the conversation.
In this letter, Khalilah Harris recommends that the Biden administration reestablish five White House initiatives housed in the Department of Education.
As the United States recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and schools return to in-person learning in the fall, it is key that educators learn from the successes of the past year and avoid making the same mistakes.
Led by Teach Plus, this letter to Congress asks that $9 billion in funding be included in the American Families Plan to invest in the teaching workforce.
Even in high schools with similar levels of access to advanced coursework, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students are less likely to be enrolled in advanced courses—and even when they are enrolled, they experience less success in these courses than their peers.
This interactive uses data from the U.S. Department of Education to estimate how many students, overall and disaggregated, enroll in AP courses, take AP tests, and pass AP tests.
Led by GLSEN and six other co-leaders, these comments were submitted in response to the Department of Education’s public hearing on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
In these comments, the Center for American Progress provides some suggestions for strengthening two proposed department priorities concerning grants programs under the Effective Educator Development Division.
Led by GLSEN, these comments support the Department of Education’s proposed priorities regarding the American History and Civics Education programs.
