Megan Austin

In Indiana and Minnesota the state education agency, state higher education agency, and the state workforce agency have collaborated to develop career and technical education courses intended to improve high school students' college and career readiness. These agencies partnered with the Regional Educational Laboratory Midwest to examine whether high school graduates in each state who completed a large number of career and technical education courses in a single career-oriented program of stu...

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships (private voucher schools). This study identified the type of high school enrollment (type of high school and voucher status) among the student populations of four cohorts (who were in grade 9 in 2010/11--2013/14) and examined those students' performance on indicators of college and career readiness and early college success. ...

In 2007 Georgia instituted a flexibility policy through which school districts enter into performance contracts with the state, receiving waivers from state rules, provisions, and guidelines in exchange for agreeing to meet annual accountability targets. The performance contracts are intended to incentivize innovations that increase achievement among all students. Between 2008/09 and 2016/17, 178 of Georgia's 180 districts entered into a performance contract. The Georgia Department of Educati...

Recent changes to state laws on accountability have prompted school districts to design teacher performance evaluation systems that incorporate student achievement (student growth) as a major component. As a consequence, some states and districts are considering teacher value-added models as part of teacher performance evaluations. Value-added models use statistical techniques to estimate teachers' (or schools') contributions to growth in student achievement over time. Designers of new perfor...