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The following includes links to historical research and publications developed during our time working at two regional educational laboratories, partnerships with content and comprehensive centers, and original research by INSTLL. Publications also include academic papers written with colleagues, for journals and conferences. Each document was authored or co-authored by Brett Lane. Full citations can be found in each source document. Additional historical documents that provide useful context are included and noted as "External."
We share these documents to provide an historical record of our work and to archive information that has contributed to the development of educational policy. Established educational organizations tend to co-opt ideas and research without acknowledging original sources. Understanding the history of public education is crucial if we are to improve.
While at the Northeast Regional Educational Laboratory (NWREL), I had the opportunity to be involved in the early Charter School Movement. We developed what may have been the first leadership academy for charter school founders. This document was later disseminated as a set of "Charter Starter" guides in the early 2000s. The Choice Matters document is an early career foray into policy.
A Profile of the Leadership Needs of Charter School Founders
Choice Matters: Policy Alternatives and Implications for Charter Schools
External Historical Resources
The Charter School Founders Library provide multiple artifacts, including a panel discussion with Howard Fuller and Joe Nathan.
The Minnesota Charter School Resource center has one of the first policy statements regarding charter schools.
I was influenced by a 1996 publication - Who Chooses? Who Loses? by Bruce Fuller and Richard Elmore, and through my active participation in the Charter School listserv hosted by Jude Hollins.
Working with rural communities in the Pacific Northwest, we developed and applied a framework for community building and renewal.
Strengthening Community Networks: The Basis for Sustainable Community Renewal
Two publications written for AERA focusing on the important role that state and district leaders play in co-constructing, making sense of, and implementing education policy, and how federal education policy shifted between 1980 and 2005.
Constructing Policy: A Framework for Effective Policy Implementation
We're From the State and We're Here to Help: State-level Innovations in Support of High-School Reform
Between 2001 and 2008, the Education Alliance at Brown University led a multi-year initiative to build the capacity of state education agencies, focusing on district and school improvement, school turnaround, and ensuring that the needs of English Language Learners were included in planning and thinking.
How Can State Education Agencies Support District Improvement: A Conversation Amongst Educational Leaders, Researchers, and Policy Actors: This symposium and proceedings was the culmination of a three year engagement with multiple states. The symposium, led by the Education Alliance and Urban Education Program at Brown University, brought together over 50 leading educators for a 3-day symposium in Newport, Rhode Island. The lessons and reflections contained in the proceedings remain relevant.
Leadership Capacities for a Changing Environment: State and District Responses to the NCLB Act of 2001: This is the final publication from a multi-year partnership with multiple states and the regional comprehensive center. Mr. Lane was involved in the New York case study.
Between 2008 and 2012, INSTLL collaborated with multiple organizations, including the Center for Innovation and Improvement, to consider how to build the capacity of states and districts to lead accelerated improvement. Building upon key state and district research, we conducted multiple case studies and authored the introduction to the Handbook on Statewide Systems of Support.
Policy to Reinforce Changing State Role, in the Handbook on Statewide Systems of Support (Sam Redding & Herbert J. Walberg, Editors)
Transforming a Statewide System of Support: The Idaho Story
Exploring the Pathway to Rapid District Improvement
A full history of school improvement has yet to be written, but it would likely show repeated cycles of old and new ideas, piecemeal successes, and multiple policy restarts. Building upon the New American Schools “Break-the-Mold” movement (1991) and Title I “schoolwide” flexibility, the 1998 Comprehensive School Reform policy catalyzed a generation of school reform. In the mid-2000s, CSR policy shifted and intensified its focus on district and school turnaround, perhaps best illustrated by Mass Insight Education’s publication of the Turnaround Challenge (2007).
See The Passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: Reflections on the Evolution of Federal Education Policy [Brett Lane, 2005] for INSTLL's analysis.
External: See The Evolution of New American Schools: From Revolution to Mainstream [external, Fordham Institute [Jeffrey Mirel, 2001]
Deeply involved in district and school improvement, INSTLL was invited by Massachusetts leadership to design and coordinate its approach to school turnaround in 2011 and was subsequently contracted to conduct a multi-year study of school turnaround in Massachusetts. Between 2015 and 2024, these “Turnaround Practices” served as the primary school improvement framework for Massachusetts schools identified for improvement. This policy research is shared below.