For the first time, all states are making preparations to adopt a new federal requirement that they collect and report student performance data for students with a parent who is an active member of the nation’s military services. Congress instituted this requirement, called the Military Student Identifier, hoping that it would become a valuable educational tool for schools and school districts looking to measure and strengthen these students’ progress.  Once in place, it can also serve as a valuable tool for parents seeking a better understanding of how military students are doing in particular school districts or schools — information they very rarely have now.

In preparing to use this new information, what are the most important educational strategies, practices and supports to help schools most effectively serve military-connected students?

That is the focus of this new report, which I coauthored with former senior federal Department of Education Official Doug Mesecar. You can read and download this report here.  It is published by the Lexington Institute and theCollaborative for Student Success.

As we observed schools around the country serving military-connected students, we worked to capture essential characteristics found in the most successful schools we saw.  After analyzing what we observed, we organized these characteristics around three pivotal domains:

• Direct support for students, including social and emotional supports using district and military resources.
• Aligned educational leadership, where teachers receive the right training and and are provided with actionable information on specific student progress, with clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and
• Systems and communities, reaching beyond the walls of the classroom to their broader communities with a stake in these students’ success.

For more, and to read the full report, you can find it online here.

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