StudentsFirst 50 State & D.C. Policy Report Card 2013

This post is also available in: Spanish

StudentsFirst, the organization led by Michelle Rhee, ex chancellor of District of Columbia Public Schools, recently released a State Policy Report Card that evaluates each state’s education laws and policies to determine what states are doing to create a better education system.  The report card does not assess student achievement, school quality, or teacher performance, but instead assesses the policy environments that affect those outcomes in each state.

The Policy Report Card was launched on January 9 at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and included as panelists the Institute’s Executive Vice President Michael J. Petrilli; Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Ulrich Boser; Director of Education Policy Studies, AEI, Frederick M. Hess; Executive Director of Chiefs for Change, Eric Smith; Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna; and Vice President of National Policy of StudentsFirst, Eric Lerum.

Each state was assigned a letter grade (A-F) depending how its policies aligned with the StudentsFirst education agenda. To do this, based on experience, research, and evidence, StudentsFirst grouped its 24 policy objectives into three pillars: Elevating the Teacher Profession, Empowering Parents with Data and Choice, and Spending Wisely and Governing Well.

Among the main findings are:

• None of the 50 states received an overall grade of “A”,
• More than two-thirds of the states received a “D” or “F” overall,
• Twelve states received a “C” or “B” overall.

StudentsFirst plans to update and release the State Policy Report Card annually, and hopes that the scorecards will help parents, teachers and policymakers select policies that are likely to provide all children with a high-quality education.

For more information on StudentsFirst 50 State & D.C. Policy Report Card 2013, click here for their webpage.