Public Impact

Serving Students with Highest Needs

Gauging Success with the Highest-Need Students

This edition of our newsletter highlights our recent report and an accompanying panel discussion on achieving results with high-need students: Our Highest-Need Students: How Can Schools Deliver for Them Post-Pandemic? Public Impact and FutureEd teamed up last week to host a panel discussion on the new report from Public Impact and Education Analytics, Identifying Schools Achieving Great Results with Highest-Need Students. […]

Engagement, Demographics, Academic, Economics—School Needs Index a New Way to Gauge Success in Serving Students With the Greatest Challenges

By Bryan Hassel and Greg Lippman; published in The 74. A version of this essay originally appeared on the FutureEd blog. We have heard a great deal over the course of the pandemic about learning loss. But while the negative impact of COVID-19 on students of all kinds is becoming increasingly clear, some students have struggled […]

Will Learning Pods Be Only for the Rich?

By Bryan Hassel and Sharon Kebschull Barrett; first published in Education Week. To exhausted or worried parents deciding whether to send their children into school buildings this fall, “pandemic pods” may look like an appealing way out. Keeping their boys and girls at home learning alone may be better for physical health but not for […]

Forging Parent Partnerships to Better Serve Students with Special Needs

Walton Family Foundation, July, 9, 2019, by Johannah Chase Report details how charter schools and parents can work together to improve outcomes for students with disabilities Parents are the experts on their children. They know the hidden strengths they possess, talents that schools might not easily unearth. They understand the unique challenges their children experience in a […]

Parent Power: To Improve Special Education in Charter Schools, Tap Students’ Original Advocates — Their Families — Report Says

The 74, June 28, 2019, by Beth Hawkins When it comes to living up to their obligation to serve students with disabilities, public charter schools face a host of challenges. In addition to the perennial headache of underfunding, there are bureaucratic constraints, a woeful lack of teacher preparation in special education and difficulty finding and […]

Reengaging Disconnected Youth: Early Lessons from Newark

New Jersey’s youth face enormous, long-standing challenges, many stemming from historic discrimination and endemic poverty. Nearly 4,000 youth between the ages of 16 and 20 are not in school, and about 3,000 more between 15 and 21 are at risk of leaving school without a high school diploma. Half of the city’s 16- to 19-year-olds, […]

Predictable Third Grade Reading Assessment Results Prompt the Question – How Can We Do Better?

EdNC, September 28, 2018, by Mandy Ableidinger

The most recent NC end of third grade reading assessment results show scores hardly shifting from last year and continued racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic gaps. What can we do differently? A recent research study on how best to reduce achievement disparities in diverse schools finds that a comprehensive set of strategies is needed.