Collaborating to transform and improve education systems: A playbook for family-school engagement

Writing for Brookings, Rebecca Winthrop, Adam Barton, Mahsa Ershadi, and Lauren Ziegler introduce a new playbook on family-school collaboration that makes the case for why family engagement is essential for education systems transformation and why families and schools must have a shared understanding of what a good quality education looks Read more

Transforming Education into a Learning System: Reflections on the Pandemic

In a new brief, Carnegie Corporation of New York and EducationCounsel explore how the American education system responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, identifying gaps (missed opportunities and systemic shortcomings that deepened the challenges our schools faced) and bright spots (existing and new efforts where learning system approaches supported more effective Read more

“Creativity Requires Freedom”: What Will It Take to Create Space Within Our Education System to Think and Design Creatively?

The Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), in partnership with the Reinvention Lab powered by Teach For America, gathered a “change-maker” group of students, educators, and education leaders. It was an intimate gathering of people committed to a learner-centered, radically different future of education. The question posed to the group Read more

Family Engagement Reimagined: Innovations Strengthening Family-School Connections to Help Students Thrive

During the 2020-21 school year, schools and families learned in particularly dramatic ways that they can’t effectively support students without being in partnership with one another. Every family faced its own unique challenges navigating distance learning, and many schools had to create new family communication strategies on the fly. While Read more

New Infographics to Help Better Understand Education Research

Three new REL West infographics are designed to support understanding of research studies so decisionmakers can make better use of evidence to inform practices and policies. Effect Size Basics: Understanding the Strength of a Program’s Impact – https://ies.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=a9bab6ebb1d1e641170c090cf&id=311c2abf04&e=fa5cdec643 This infographic explains what effect size is, the difference between effect size Read more

Widescale Study Finds More Students Started the School Year Behind

Fewer elementary and middle school students started the 2021 school year on grade level for reading and mathematics, according to a new report released by Curriculum Associates. The report, Understanding Student Learning: Insights from Fall 2021, analyzes data gathered from the edtech company’s i-Ready Assessment tool on reading and mathematics Read more

3 Lessons from Schools Where COVID Innovations Offer New Solutions

Recently in The 74, representatives from three philanthropic organizations supporting public education shared their perspective on COVID innovations worth supporting. Excerpts from their piece appear below: The Canopy Project tracked how hundreds of schools across the country adapted and innovated last year in student-centered ways. The following adaptations these schools Read more