2010 Informing the Debate:
 Recent Civil Rights Research and The Reauthorization of the ESEA

Research findings from leading scholars were presented and discussed at this February 5, 2010 briefing.   Civil rights advocates and congressional staffers opened the discussion with participants to explore what lessons can be learned by legislators from research presented on the following subjects: 

• School accountability for improving graduation rates; 

• Efforts to improve access to well qualified teachers and diversify the teaching workforce; 

• Testing validity issues and their impact on the instruction of English learners; 

• The promotion of school choice, charter schools and the need to improve school diversity; and 

• Concerns about the increasing use of school suspension to improve educational outcomes and environments.

Research and Recommendations

• 
Diversity: "Federal Education Policy Should Promote Diversity"  by 
Erica Frankenberg, Research and Policy Director, and 
Gary Orfield, Co-Director, at The Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

•  Graduation Rate Crisis: "How the ESEA Could Help End the Graduation Rate Crisis"  by 
Robert Balfánz, Co-Director, Everyone Graduates Center, Johns Hopkins University.

•  Discipline: "The ESEA Can Ensure That Discipline Serves an Educational Mission"  by 
Daniel Losen, Senior Education Law and Policy Associate, The Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

•  English Language Learners: "The ESEA Must Do More to Support the Instruction and Assessment of English Learners"  by Patricia Gándara, Co-Director, at The Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

•  Complete ESEA-related sources complied by CRP staff.