This guide is designed to help school team design learning that equitably honors the unique assets and needs of students. Learning must be designed with students at the center. It must be personalized to students' unique assets, interests, identities, and aspirations--and designed with their ideas and voices at the table. Education Evolving has…

COVID-19 exacerbated and brought attention to inequities long present in public education. Facing inconsistent access to learning over distance, students will leave this period with months of what's been called "lost learning." Short of repeating a full year, addressing these gaps presents a grave challenge for traditionally structured…

In the United States, English is not the official language but the dominant one. But for many students, the dominance of English instruction has come at the expense of losing their first language. For much of our history of schooling in the United States, students have been forced to leave their heritage or home languages at the door when they…

Teacher-powered schools are a powerful, practical route to better and more equitable student learning. This paper makes the evidence-based case for these innovative schools. "Evidence for Teacher-Powered Schools: A Practical Route to Better and More Equitable Student Outcomes" explores outcomes for students and schools led by…

Over half of all teacher-powered schools have designated administrators, and the role is very different from what a traditional principal does at most K-12 schools. This guide is designed to address the unique opportunities and challenges in being a teacher-powered administrator. The guide draws on the expertise and experience of eight…

In 2018, the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) opened rulemaking on the Standards of Effective Practice, which are the core set of knowledge and skills that all teacher candidates in Minnesota teacher preparation programs learn. Opening these regulations has created the opportunity for Minnesota to start rethinking how…

"Teacher-Powered Practices: How teacher teams collaboratively lead and create student-centered schools" focuses on how innovative teachers are radically changing the ways schools are designed and run. The how here are the common practices, structures, and processes teacher-powered teams design and use daily. The guide identifies nine…

For the past 35 years, the prevailing narrative about America's public education system is that it is "broken." Reform efforts have failed to find a fix because they fundamentally misunderstand this reality: the system is not broken. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do--educate the masses in a standardized fashion that…

To equitably prepare all students for success in the 21st century, we must define and measure broader, deeper, and more student-centered outcomes for students and schools. In this paper, we review the outcomes that researchers, students, educators, families, and communities indicate are important, and describe the array of emerging strategies for…

During the 2017 legislative session, the Minnesota legislature overhauled the existing teacher licensure system and replaced it with a new four-tiered teacher licensure system. This brief provides a historical overview of the impetus for the change, as well as the transition to the new licensure system. This is a living document that EE [Education…

The School Quality or Student Success (SQ/SS) indicator was one of the most talked about and biggest decisions that fell to the states in drafting their new ESSA accountability plans. This memo summarizes the chosen SQ/SS measures for each state, DC, and Puerto Rico. The most common SQ/SS measures among the states are: (1) Chronic Absenteeism (37…

Minnesota needs drastically different and better approaches to learning in order to meet the needs of all students, and the challenges of the 21st century. That will require a move to more student-centered learning--that is, learning that is built on a foundation of strong relationships, responsive to basic needs, driven by students, respectful of…

On April 3, 2017, sixteen states (Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Vermont) and the District of Columbia submitted their Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) state accountability plans to either the US Department of…

Public education now has two sectors: a district sector and a chartered sector. Chartering--and this two-sector arrangement in general--needs to be thought of as a strategy for change, not just a set of schools. Given flexibility, the chartered sector can and does generate the needed innovation, the necessary improvements in learning. This white…

Teaching is the number one in-school factor affecting student outcomes. And a central part of the strategy for improving teaching involves better teacher preparation. There is a great need for more relevant and innovative teacher preparation programs, and Education Evolving believes creating a new program--potentially within a non-conventional…