Akisha Osei Sarfo, Ph.D. is the Director of Research for the Council of Great City Schools. Founded in 1956, the Council brings together 78 of the nation’s largest urban public school systems in a coalition dedicated to the improvement of education for children in the inner cities. Dr. Sarfo leads the Council’s research work, facilitating the collaboration between district research departments while also spearheading the production of novel research, resources, and data tools for use by member districts.
Research on Education Strategies to
Advance Recovery and Turnaround
Policymaker
The sudden onset of a global pandemic in March 2020 created unprecedented challenges for all students, their families and their teachers.
This report provides the results from analyzing test score results from roughly 8,000 school districts in 30 states to measure the extent to which test scores changed from Spring 2019 to Spring 2022 and from Spring 2022 to
Spring 2023.
This brief provides takeaway messages from a discussion hosted by the National Academy of Education about the long-term impacts of the pandemic on the U.S. education system.
This report summarizes the developing base of literature on learning acceleration approaches and shares promising practices from New Jersey schools.
This brief examines policy language from 10 states that have innovation zones. Innovation zones are created through state legislation to give schools and districts freedom from burdensome administrative regulations. This flexibility gives schools and districts a chance to modernize teaching and learning.
This brief provides an overview of the use of learning pods in the 100 largest cities in the U.S.
This report provides the strategies and use of federal relief funds under ESSER used by the Hawai'i State Department of Education.
This report provides a summary of the results of the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment used to assess the majority of the kindergarteners enrolled in Maryland's public schools in 2021-2022.
Strategies to Guide the Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Relief Funding for Early Care and Education
This brief highlights some of the strategies states are pursuing to address equity in allocating their ARPA child care funds.