NEPC Documents Archive

Background: The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), founded in 2010 by Alex Molnar and Kevin Welner at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, provides high-quality information in support of democratic deliberation about education policy.  NEPC documents are written in accessible language and are intended for a broad audience that includes academic experts, policymakers, the media, and the general public.  

Archive Contents:  This archive contains all NEPC published documents as well as documents published by NEPC’s predecessor centers, the Education and Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) at Arizona State University, and the Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation (CERAI) and Center for Analysis of Commercialism in Education (CACE) at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. 

License:  All documents in the archive are provided free of cost to readers, who may make non-commercial use of them as long as NEPC and its authors are credited as the source. For inquiries about commercial use, please contact NEPC at nepc@colorado.edu.

Additional notes: Document URLS for the original NEPC website may not be active in the archive.

This archive was last updated on August 13, 2025  

Browse Publications

Policy Briefs: Documents that synthesize existing research knowledge on a policy or practice issue of importance.

Legislative Briefs: Documents that combine the research syntheses and policy recommendations found in Policy Briefs with a section drafted by an attorney containing model statutory language.

Research Briefs: Documents that present original research on significant policy questions.  

NEPC Reviews: Expert third-party reviews of selected non-peer-reviewed publications. Using academic peer review standards, reviewers consider the quality and defensibility of a report's assumptions, methods, findings, and recommendations.

Policy Memos: Documents that are less formal than briefs. They may, for example, provide information such as a list of education experts, or offer an assessment of the merits of a particular policy proposal in the news, or provide a commentary on a topical subject. 

For Your Information (FYI) Documents:  Documents in audio, video, image, or print formats that offer important content in a brief, engaging manner intended to promote further learning or action.

Resource Documents:  Documents originally published by an NEPC predecessor center.

Browse Podcasts

NEPC Talks Education podcasts provide 30 minutes of engaging high-quality policy discussion with experts on a variety of education policy topics. 

Browse Newsletters

Newsletters address topics about which NEPC has previously published briefs, reviews, or other documents. They are also used to make announcements or provide commentary and content that is not well suited to other publication formats.

Browse Blogs

NEPC's Blog Post of the Day features a selection of interesting and insightful blog posts that apply a researcher perspective to important education policy issues. The views expressed by the bloggers are entirely their own.

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