The preschool landscape is complex, consisting of several publicly funded programs supported by federal, state, and local funds. Included in this landscape is Head Start, a critical early childhood education (ECE) program that serves--in every state and territory--young children in families with incomes at or below the federal poverty line,…

The Department of Education (Education) created Race To the Top (RTT) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. From 2010 through 2011, Education awarded $4 billion in competitive grant funds to 19 states to reform core areas of K-12 education. RTT states also committed to building capacity to implement and sustain reforms. GAO and…

Participation in preschool programs has been associated with a number of positive outcomes. Evaluating data from the 40-year follow-up to the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program Study, Belfield and his colleagues show how preschool participation by low income children relates to significant economic benefits both to the children by the time they…

To learn more about states' experiences with implementing school improvement grants (SIGs) funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the Center on Education Policy (CEP) administered a survey to state Title I directors. (Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act provides federal funds to schools in low-income…

In 2009, the federal government committed over $3 billion nationwide to help states and districts turn around their worst-performing schools. The U.S. Department of Education intended for the School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to spur dramatic change.This report looks at the results of a field study of the first-year implementation of those grants…

Drawing on data from state departments of education and other public sources, this report estimates the number and percentage of public schools that did not make adequate yearly progress. The report finds that approximately one-third of the nation's public schools did not make AYP in school year 2008-09, although the number varied greatly by…

Educational reform in the United States is perpetually evolving. Much of the recent reforms have concentrated on high-stakes testing and assessment, but a parallel effort has been emerging in the field of vocational and career education. Prompted partly by federal legislation--most recently by the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus package, appropriated $100 billion for education and included $3 billion for school improvement grants (SIGs) to help reform low-performing schools. This amount was in addition to the $546 million provided by the regular fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill for…

Nearly every high-priority item in national, federal, state, and local discussions about education--and policy proposals across the political spectrum--requires high-quality longitudinal data to inform its design, implementation, and evaluation. This factsheet shares Data Quality Campaign's (DQC's) analysis of what "Data for Action 2011:…

This report on a statewide telephone survey describes child care use in Minnesota among households with children 12 and younger. Minnesota has an estimated 908,000 children ages 12 and younger; 24 percent are ages 0 to 2, 24 percent ages 3 to 5, 30 percent ages 6 to 9 and 23 percent ages 10 to 12. Of the nearly 500,000 households with one or more…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the economic stimulus bill, channeled an unprecedented $100 billion into the nation's public education system. These funds were intended not only to avert teacher layoffs and stabilize state and local education budgets in the short term, but also to encourage reforms that…

Effective evidence-based action requires getting the right data into the right hands at the right time to help make decisions. The Data Quality Campaign (2011) has provided suggestions to state education agencies for effectively using data within state longitudinal data systems. One suggestion is to identify "the variety of ways available…

In fiscal year 2008, about 31 million children participated in the National School Lunch Program and more than 10 million children participated in the School Breakfast Program each school day. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) spent $11.7 billion on the school meal programs in that year. The majority of…

The National Research Center on Career and Technical Education has supported four studies on one of the major components of Perkins legislation: programs of study. In this article, we present qualitative data linking the research center's longitudinal projects based on programs of study, via a one-time cross-case study of sites deemed highly…

This report looks at the early efforts of states to implement the elementary and secondary education provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The findings are drawn from a survey of officials in state education agencies and governors' offices in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Key findings concern the financial…