At CRPE, we study how assessment, accountability, and oversight can strengthen public education while fostering equity, innovation, and continuous improvement. Our research examines how traditional accountability frameworks can narrow teaching and constrain schools’ ability to adapt, and we explore approaches that measure what truly matters for student success—academic growth, deeper learning, and readiness for life beyond school. We also investigate how oversight can balance school autonomy with strong protections for access and quality, ensuring that all students are well served. Across this work, our goal is to inform accountability systems that uphold public trust while enabling schools to innovate and respond to the diverse needs of their communities.
No shortage of ideas abound about how to address post-pandemic learning loss, mental health problems and low school attendance. But the best-sounding ideas may make demands on schools and other public agencies that they often can’t meet.
This piece was originally published on EdNote, the Education Commission of the States’ blog. School closures, quarantines and staffing uncertainties have contributed to the biggest math and reading declines our country has seen in more than two decades.
This commentary is a response to the Center on Reinventing Public Education’s State of the American Student project, an effort launched in fall 2022 to track and report on pandemic recovery and school reimagining efforts over the next five years.
Families, teachers, and community members whose schools are closed often pay a big price. But thoughtfully structuring the problem and carefully designing the process for deciding on a solution can help reduce public conflict.
