Policy Update
As parents increasingly ask to opt their children out of standardized tests, state boards of education are sometimes unsure whether and how to respond. This Policy Update highlights successful policy strategies for addressing opt out requests and how state boards can use this opportunity to communicate the benefits of testing and improve the public’s understanding of test-based accountability.
State Innovations
In 2014, NASBE awarded stipends to state boards of education in Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, New Jersey, and West Virginia to support Next Generation Science Standards implementation. This piece profiles the work of these six boards and identifies steps toward successful implementation.
Policy Update
"Trends in State Legislation on Student Data Privacy" details the ways in which state legislatures across the country have enhanced protections for student data and expanded the role of state boards in protecting that data. It describes several key elements in legislation introduced or passed this year, and notes several exemplary states.
State Innovations
New Hampshire combines competency-based standards, performance assessment, accountability, and professional development to support deeper learning.
Education Leaders Reports
Provides foundational principles that underlie deeper learning, explores issues, provides state examples, and includes worksheets that boards can use to facilitate discussions and come to solutions that make sense given the unique needs of each state.
Policy Update
According to the US Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection, nearly 96 percent of our nation’s public school teachers are licensed and certified. So why are over a half a million low-income and minority students still being taught in schools with the highest percentages of unqualified and inexperienced teachers? A new NASBE Policy Update explores teacher equity and why state policymakers need to start paying closer attention.
Policy Update
“A Tale of Two Federal Student Data Privacy Bills” measures the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act (SDPPRA) and Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) discussion draft across several areas – ease of implementation, transparency, penalties, data-technology balance, and restrictions on third-parties.
Policy Update
In “Regulating Student Data Privacy,” NASBE Director of Education Data and Technology Amelia Vance explains why concerns over student data privacy have dominated the headlines, and what states—and state boards of education in particular—are doing to ensure the safety of student data.
