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Webinar: Literacy, Data, and the Science of Reading
On November 12, 2025, Aligned hosted a webinar examining how Kansas and Missouri are translating the “science of reading” into policy and practice. The session walked through recent reading data, what research says about effective early literacy instruction, and how current laws…
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Kansas Requests Federal Waiver to Unify School Accountability Systems
On Monday, October 27, Kansas joined the increasing number of states seeking to waive certain requirements of federal education law. Specifically, the waiver seeks to make a unified accountability system, merging the current state and federal systems into one within four years. This…
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Cradle to Career Listening Tour 2025
Overview In 2025, Aligned launched the Cradle to Career Listening Tour with a simple goal: listen first. We traveled across Kansas to hear directly from parents, educators, employers, and community leaders about what is working, what is not, and where…
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A Brief History of Literacy Instruction in America
This post is the second in a series exploring literacy within education policy and practice. In the first blog, we introduced the major methods of teaching reading in the U.S. — phonics, whole language, balanced literacy, and sight word memorization. Here,…
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Update – October 2025
This month’s highlights: Top News – New national polling from the PIE Network reveals a major gap between parents’ perceptions of student achievement and actual performance data. Missouri Update – School Funding Modernization Task Force workgroups are developing early proposals for updating the state’s formula. A new…
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How We Teach Literacy
This blog post is the first in a series exploring literacy within education policy and practice. Here, we introduce the major methods of teaching reading and the debates surrounding them. Understanding these approaches — what they are, how they work,…
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Op-ed: Why standardized testing still matters in Missouri
This opinion piece originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. By Eric Syverson, Director of Policy & Research, Aligned. Across the nation, skepticism toward statewide assessment is rising. Teachers and families increasingly question whether traditional testing supports learning or just consumes valuable instructional…
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Update – September 2025
This month’s highlights: Top News – The U.S. Department of Education announced over $1.1 billion in redirected funding, with investments for HBCUs, TCUs, charter schools, and civics programs.Missouri Update – Working groups of the School Funding Modernization Task Force began meeting, including one that now features Aligned’s own Torree…
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Webinar: Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems
On September 10, 2025, Aligned partnered with the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) to host a webinar introducing Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDSs) and their role in aligning education and workforce priorities. SLDSs help states connect data across systems, inform policy, and provide valuable…
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Introducing the Aligned Data Matrix
Money matters. But money alone doesn’t guarantee better results. The Aligned Data Matrix is our education finance data hub that lets you compare funding and student outcomes across Missouri school districts, visualize patterns over time, and identify where investment and achievement diverge. Use it…
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Update – August 2025
This month’s highlights: Top Story — Testing & accountability at a crossroads: what the research says, why it matters now, and how systems should evolve. Missouri Update — Funding Formula Modernization Task Force hears Bellwether’s best-practice options; plus Missouri’s SRSA pilot launches, moving…
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Webinar: Property Taxes & Education Funding
On July 16, 2025, Aligned’s second webinar examined the vital link between property taxes and education funding in Kansas and Missouri. Property taxes remain the primary source of local school revenue, yet reliance on property wealth can create disparities between districts. The session…
Resources Hub
Access nonpartisan research and news about the policies shaping education in Kansas and Missouri.