The Frontline Research & Learning Institute was founded in 2016 with a single goal in mind: to provide data-driven research, resources and observations to support and advance the educational community.
Our Data
The Institute’s research is driven by the vast amount of data from Frontline Education’s many education administrative solutions. With over 7,500 K-12 organizations and several million users, we’re committed to leveraging that data to provide rigorously-validated research reports as well as tools to enable informed decision-making for K-12 leaders.
Our Advisory Council
Our Advisory Council, comprised of experienced leaders from across K-12 education, guides the Institute toward the topics and insights that K-12 leaders will find relevant and useful.
Our Commitment to Integrity
Maintaining trust and confidence is of utmost importance. All Institute publications report only aggregate and anonymous data to protect the privacy of our clients and their stakeholders.
Our efforts can be broken down into three main areas:
Research Reports for K-12 Education
Leveraging data, surveys and other original research, the Institute covers a range of topics in regularly-released reports and briefs. These topics include:
- Human Capital Management and the Use of K-12 Talent Data
- Hiring Bias and the Teacher Shortage
- Ongoing Trends in Employee Absences
- The Impact of Professionally-Related Activities on Absences
- Professional Learning Effectiveness & ESSA
- Special Education Classification Rates & Equity
It’s not just the ready availability of our data that makes our research unique; it’s also the breadth of the data we collect.
Importantly, the Johns Hopkins Center for Research and Reform in Education (CRRE) has conducted several analyses on the representativeness of Frontline Education’s data vs. national norms. Their reports have found that the districts represented in Frontline’s data set are “reasonably representative of the population in terms of student characteristics.”
Embedded Benchmarks
The Frontline Research & Learning Institute offers data of unparalleled depth and breadth, representative of national averages and therefore widely applicable to school districts across the country. Our next step was to take that data from research and insights into action.
To put the data into K-12 leader’s hands, we have begun embedding benchmarks – leveraging Institute data – into the Frontline Education solutions. With embedded benchmarks, called the “Institute Report” within Frontline solutions, districts can see at a glance how their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) compare to other districts nationally, in their state or of similar locale.
As a result of these ongoing efforts, we offer not only unprecedented insights, but a unique means of putting them right at district leaders’ fingertips, leading to actionable results.
“The Institute Report tells you what’s going on in your district compared to all the other districts in your state and nationwide. It tells a story, and that’s what you want your dashboards to do – tell a story.” Paula Balch, Personnel Specialist – Mustang Public Schools, OK
The Line
Last but not least, the Institute produces The Line, an award-winning print and web publication dedicated to facilitating civil discourse on critical issues facing K-12 education.
By bringing together diverse perspectives across education, The Line creates a community for evidence-based, thoughtful debate that furthers understanding, bridges divides and drives action for the benefit of our students.
With contributors ranging from superintendents and union leaders to teachers and policy makers, The Line is a resource by educators, for educators. We highlight key educational voices from across the K-12 landscape – voices like Charlotte Danielson, Sherry King, Andy Rotherham, Rick Hess and Jeb Bush.
Topics range from the equity of special education, to issues of student liberty, to school choice and more. At TheLineK12.com, interactive engagement tools promote discussion, including digital annotations and commenting.
Visit TheLineK12.com“The work The Line does is crucial to our country, communities, and schools moving forward. If we cannot engage in Civil Discourse and find common ground, we will fail our children.” Anna Stubblefield, interim superintendent of Lawrence, Kansas Public Schools