Author Archives: Doug Mesecar and Don Soifer
Getting School Districts Ready for the Military Student Identifier Executive Summary Click here to read the full report Those who serve active duty in our nation’s military are often quite familiar with making sacrifices as part of fulfilling their service. So, too, are their families, and even their school-aged [Read More...]
Why Personalize: Teaching and Learning in Warren Township, Indiana Executive Summary
Indiana’s Metropolitan School District of Warren Township is rapidly emerging as a personalized learning leader in the nation’s heartland. The district, one of sixteen winners of federal Race to the Top District grants from the U.S. Department of [Read More...]
New Jersey’s Opportunity to Advance Educational Outcomes (From the Bergen Record) Recently, New Jersey’s new state school accountability plan earned strong marks from an independent, objective national panel of experts. Translating this encouraging development into improved student outcomes, and narrowing gaps in student achievement, will now depend on effectively getting schools [Read More...]
Improving Educational Opportunities for Military Families From the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
The Administration of President Donald Trump reportedly plans to increase the numbers of the U.S. armed forces by at least 125,000 active-duty service members.
Will Virginia be at the center of this planned growth? One factor [Read More...]
Better Serving Those Who Serve: Improving the Educational Opportunities of Military-Connected Students Key Findings Click here to download the full report as PDF.
This report assesses the performance of schools in four states with large concentrations of active-duty military personnel who have children in the public school systems. They are Colorado, [Read More...]
How the Trump Administration Should Lead on Education (From Forbes) Should Americans expect the incoming Donald Trump Administration to have much impact on the nation’s schools?
President-elect Donald J. Trump and Secretary of Education nominee Betsy DeVos will soon find themselves setting the national dialogue on education. They will be [Read More...]
Robinson or Schaffer Would Have Strong Impact as Education Secretary The leader President-elect Donald Trump selects to be Education Secretary will reveal a great deal about his administration’s priorities, and potential, to meaningfully influence American public education.
Two candidates, Gerard Robinson and Bob Schaffer, whose names appear on recent versions [Read More...]
Improving Virginia’s School Standards to Support Achievement and Innovation August 23, 2016
Submitted to the Virginia Board of Education, Committee on the Standards of Quality
President Cannaday and Members of the Virginia Board of Education,
We are writing to provide the input of the Lexington Institute as the [Read More...]
Updating Virginia Education Rules to Support Personalizing Learning (From Richmond Times-Dispatch) With last year’s SOL test scores just released, it is important to consider how Virginia can revitalize holding divisions and schools accountable for student results under a new federal education law. This is a pivotal opportunity for the commonwealth to [Read More...]
New Jersey’s Educational Opportunity: A Chance for All to Succeed From New Jersey Spotlight Competing new school finance proposals from Governor Christie and Senate Democrats each seek to use funding changes to improve student outcomes across the state. Both sides describe their plan as supporting equality of opportunity, but neither [Read More...]