CRPE analyzes how politics—especially polarization and partisan divides—impact enacting and sustaining meaningful education reform. Political dynamics have often hindered progress, stalling promising innovations and narrowing the space for bipartisan solutions. Our work examines these tensions, identifies strategies to navigate them, and highlights opportunities for leaders to move reforms forward despite political headwinds.
As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, civic learning is having a moment—but new data suggest that more support is needed to move students from knowing the basics to participating in civics learning and practice within their communities.
Fifty years ago, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) promised to bridge the gap between what students with disabilities need and what the public education system was designed to provide.
In American education, the scars of the “accountability wars” still run deep. More than two decades after the federal No Child Left Behind Act established punitive, high-profile accountability requirements for America’s K–12 schools, states and districts remain wary of debates over testing, student performance, and school improvement.
In early 2025, the National Center for Education Statistics quietly announced a new record: 7.9 million public school students were identified with a disability under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
A new report from the American School District Panel, a research partnership between RAND and CRPE, examines how districts define and facilitate civic learning in an era of political polarization, competing instructional priorities, and uneven state support.
