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Michael DeArmond

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Background

Michael DeArmond is a former principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education. His research looks at educational governance, bureaucratic reform, and policy implementation. In addition to policy reports, his research has been published in academic journals, including Education Finance and Policy, Education Administration Quarterly, and Journal of Education Finance, as well as in edited volumes from the Brookings Institution Press, the Urban Institute Press, and Harvard Education Press.

Dr. DeArmond has a PhD in education and an M.P.A. in social policy and education, both from the University of Washington, and a B.A. in history from Brown University. Prior to working as an education researcher, he was a middle school history teacher.

Publications

Michael DeArmond

  • Research Reports    

Whack-A-Mole: School Systems Respond to Disrupted Learning in 2021

Michael DeArmond, Paul Hill, Kate Destler, Christine Campbell

This report complements our latest fall 2021 survey research from the American School District Panel with in-depth interviews of leaders on the ground in five school systems.

  • The Lens    

Finding teachers and bus drivers is a big problem, but a different staffing challenge is looming in school districts

Michael DeArmond, Heather Schwartz, Paul Hill

The American School District Panel surveyed school districts nationwide to better understand their staffing challenges in the pandemic’s third school year.

  • Research Reports    

Student Support That Meets the Moment: The Need for Clarity and Rigor in SEL

Lisa Chu, Michael DeArmond

As stress and disruption have intensified for students over the past two years due to the pandemic, so has interest in and spending on social-emotional learning (SEL) in public education.

  • Research Reports    

Approaching SEL as a Whole-School Effort, Not an Add-On: Lessons from Two Charter Networks

Lisa Chu, Michael DeArmond

This paper highlights the approach that two innovative charter networks took last year to address student well-being and social-emotional development.

  • The Lens    

A national corps of mentors: Lessons from the pandemic on elevating teachers’ craft, at scale

Steven Wilson, Michael DeArmond, Robin Lake

As the new school year approaches, big-city superintendents everywhere confront the chasm between their students’ needs and their districts’ capacity to meet them.

  • The Lens    

As school districts move from “reopening” to “recovery,” what will they be recovering from?

Paul Hill, Michael DeArmond

Last winter we interviewed 29 school leaders about lost learning time over the last year and a half, and they were nearly unanimous on one point: rather than diverting struggling students to remedial tracks, they hoped to push forward with teaching grade-level content and skills across the board.

  • Research Reports    

How Six School Systems are Responding to Disrupted Schooling: Will It Be Enough?

Michael DeArmond, Betheny Gross, Paul Hill

This report examines how six school systems tried to address the academic consequences of disrupted learning in the 2020-2021 school year.

  • The Lens    

A missing link to help students emotionally and academically

Michael DeArmond, Betheny Gross

Fifty-six percent of students say they are more stressed about school than before the pandemic. Eighty-three percent report a physical symptom of stress—like difficulty sleeping, headaches, and weight gain or loss.

  • Research Reports    

How Are School Districts Addressing Student Social-Emotional Needs during the Pandemic?

Michael DeArmond, Lisa Chu

In this brief, we look at how our nationally representative sample of 477 school districts attended to students’ social-emotional learning and well-being in fall 2020.

  • Research Reports    

Navigating Out-of-School Learning and the Power of Relationships: Lessons from Year 2 at RESCHOOL Colorado

Betheny Gross, Michael DeArmond

This report describes the implementation of RESCHOOL Colorado’s Learner Advocate Network between 2018 and 2019 and what it implies for expanding similar efforts elsewhere.

  • The Lens    

“We Should Have Been Working This Way All Along”: School District Central Offices Embrace Change in Crisis Response

Michael DeArmond

The uneven and, in some cases, slow-moving efforts to support student learning during the COVID-19 pandemic have raised new questions about whether school districts are prepared to respond to a fast-moving crisis.

  • Research Reports    

A Middle Way for States in the ESSA Era: Lessons from Texas

Alice Opalka, Ashley Jochim, Michael DeArmond

The report examines the Texas Education Agency’s System of Great Schools (SGS) initiative, which calls on districts to manage school performance in new ways, expands access to school choice options, and takes a dynamic approach to managing their supply of schools.

  • The Lens    

Don’t Neglect Districts in the Effort to Advance Portfolio from the Outside

Ashley Jochim, Michael DeArmond

Re:portfolio is a monthly publication of articles, news clips, and resources about the portfolio strategy for civic and education leaders. This post comes from the second edition, in which we discuss outside-in approaches for reform.

  • Research Reports    

Seizing the Opportunity: Educating Students with Disabilities in Charter Schools

Michael DeArmond, Sean Gill, Betheny Gross, Georgia Heyward, Robin Lake

This report is the first step in developing an evidence base about how charter schools meet the needs of unique learners, how they can improve in this work, and what aspects of chartering as a governance model support or impede their ability to do so.

  • Research Reports    

Student Mobility in Kansas City

Michael DeArmond, Alice Opalka, Patrick Denice

This brief examines student mobility in Kansas City Public Schools.

  • Research Reports    

Expanding Access to Out-of-School Learning: Lessons from Year 1 at ReSchool Colorado

Betheny Gross, Michael DeArmond

This brief provides an initial, formative assessment of lessons learned in the first year of ReSchool Colorado’s initiatives to expand access to out-of-school learning opportunities for children in the Denver area.

  • Research Reports    

Thinking Forward: New Ideas for a New Era of Public Education

Robin Lake, Travis Pillow, Betheny Gross, Michael DeArmond, Tom Coyne

These essays rethink foundational aspects of the current education system and offer new ideas to shift the lens from schools to students. 

  • Research Reports    

The Uncertain Future of Teaching

Michael DeArmond, Christine Campbell, Paul Hill

This essay explores the need for new models that expand who works with students and differentiate teaching roles to a far greater degree.

  • Research Reports    

Leading Personalized Learning

Michael DeArmond

CRPE researchers analyze how school leaders can both encourage experimentation and support the formalization of innovative practice.

  • Research Reports    

Personalized Learning at a Crossroads

Betheny Gross, Michael DeArmond

This report explores the early promise and challenges in personalized learning and calls for more system-level supports and strategies for innovation. 

  • The Lens    

When Schools Come in Different Flavors, It Doesn’t Mean Families Have Options

Michael DeArmond

When asked about school quality, public school parents tend to be pessimistic about how good the nation’s schools are overall, but happy with their own children’s school.

  • The Lens    

Good Government Is Not Good Enough When Managing Choice in the Real World

Michael DeArmond

The portents of market failure—things like inadequate information and a lack of competition—are everywhere in public education. So, when it comes to school choice, government has an important role to play: reducing information asymmetries, bolstering accountability, and ensuring fairness.

  • The Lens    

Increasing the Demand for High-Quality Schools in Cleveland

Michael DeArmond

With the election of President Donald Trump and the appointment of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, it may seem like school choice is having its day, poised to gain momentum.

  • The Lens    

Time to Help Teachers Generate and Use Their Own Evidence on Digital Tools

Betheny Gross, Michael DeArmond

This is the seventh installment in our series of “Notes From the Field” on personalized learning. “There are so many digital resources out there, I am lost as to which ones are good.I usually try things that some of the more technology-knowledgeable people I teach with [use].”From “Teachers Know Best,” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2015, page 21 Teachers in the personalized learning (PL) schools we visit are using a wide range of digital tools—sometimes picking up and dropping them at a rapid clip—but their decisions about which tools to use generally aren’t guided by systematic evidence.

  • The Lens    

What’s Next for Newark?

Michael DeArmond, Patrick Denice

After more than two decades of state supervision, Newark’s public schools are slated to return to local control. When the state hands the keys back to the city, local leaders will inherit a district that’s in a fundamentally different position than it was in 1995, the year the state took over.

  • The Lens    

Personalized Learning Can’t Ignore School Leaders

Michael DeArmond, Betheny Gross

This is the third in our series of “Notes From the Field” on personalized learning. Over the course of this project we’ve heard a lot from schools about what personalized learning (PL) means for teachers and classrooms, but less about what it means for principals—and that is worrisome.

  • The Lens    

Technology’s Unmet Progressive Promise

Michael DeArmond

This is the second in our series of “Notes From the Field” on personalized learning. Twenty-five years ago, I was a young history teacher soaking up progressive teaching methods that aimed to foster deep, personalized learning for my students.

  • The Lens    

How Fordham’s Rankings Measure Up

Robin Lake, Michael DeArmond

This blog was originally published in Fordham’s Flypaper. At CRPE, we believe strongly in taking a city-wide view of education. The reality of urban education these days is a complicated mash-up of schools run by districts, charter providers, independent private schools, and sometimes even state agencies.

  • The Lens    

No One Has a Monopoly On “Beating the Odds”

Michael DeArmond

We recently released a report that looked at nine indicators to measure educational improvement and opportunity in 50 cities across America.

  • The Lens    

Can City Schools Address the Achievement and Opportunity Gap?

Michael DeArmond, Robin Lake, Ashley Jochim

This blog was first published in the Brookings Brown Center Chalkboard. In a recent report, we looked at how public education is delivering on the promise of educational opportunity in 50 mid- to large-sized cities in the United States.

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