The bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was enacted in December 2015. ESSA gives states more opportunities to design their own educational systems, while also encouraging and sometimes requiring them to use evidence-based approaches that can help improve student outcomes.
Our guest today, Thomas Kane, joins us for part two of our conversation about how states can use ESSA to focus education spending on what works. Our earlier conversation on the podcast focused on how states can use “efficacy networks” to test strategies for school improvement. Today we focus on another important strategy for state education leaders. Tom Kane is a professor of education and economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and faculty director of the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard.