The passage of the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act in 1988 was truly a watershed moment in the field of gifted education. The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented (NRC/GT) represented one part of the overall agenda of research and services supported by the Javits Act. How the Javits Act came to be and the…

Summer learning loss creates a permanent drag on the US education system. With the generous support of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) developed "Moving Summer Learning Forward: A Strategic Roadmap for Funding in Tough Times" to provide out-of-school time programs, school districts,…

In classic Western movies, the good guy could be frequently identified by his trademark white Stetson hat, whereas the bad guy always wore black. James J. Gallagher wore many hats during his career that spanned over six decades; he too would be known as the "man in the white hat,"--trusted to do the right thing. From 1967 to 1970,…

Whatever is enacted legislatively, viable school improvement depends on how policy makers conceive and leaders plan to address the full range of factors affecting learning and teaching and how the operational infrastructure is reworked to enable strategic and effective development of essential interventions. This is especially so for schools that…

In recent years, national policymakers have placed new emphasis on "school turnarounds" as a strategy for rapid, dramatic improvement in chronically failing schools, calling on education leaders to turn around performance in the 5,000 lowest-achieving schools nationwide. This goal may seem daunting, given the dismal success rates of…

The inclusion of universal design for learning (UDL) in the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act 2008 (HEA) demonstrates its escalating importance in the education field. UDL concepts and practices are not yet broadly integrated into all education policy. Policy has been slow to catch up to this quickly growing practice. To address that…

As part of a larger project to rethink the federal role in elementary and secondary education, the Center on Education Policy prepared this compendium, which summarizes the findings of major studies of the implementation and effects of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) conducted by various organizations and agencies. The brief summaries are…

Debate over the proper identification and placement of gifted children in public schools is not new. But the pressure put on public schools by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 has brought advocates and opponents of gifted education into starker conflict. This presents a chance to reexamine the foundational premises of the argument in…

The report presents data and discussion on U.S. education across sectors, as well as the work of the Office of Education (OE). Among topics covered are the education budget; OE reorganization; educational priorities, including basic skills, binding school to work, higher education, education of the handicapped; legislation, including the 1978…