Today's school librarians are taking the lead with legislative advocacy for education and their efforts are beginning to have an impact on legislation. Advocates for school library programs in the state of Washington made historic legislative in-roads in 2009 with the passage of Substitute House Bill 2261. Arguably, the most important factor in…

Career and technical education (CTE) is increasingly seen as a major potential contributor to the recovery of the U.S. economy. However, the effectiveness and impact of the current Carl D. Perkins Act (otherwise known as Perkins IV) that governs CTE are unclear. Is the federal investment in CTE paying off? To answer this, we need to establish the…

Differential response (DR), also referred to as alternative response (AR), family assessment response (FAR), or multiple track response, was developed to incorporate family-centered, strengths-based practices into child protective services (CPS), primarily by diverting lower risk families into an assessment track rather than requiring the…

Over the past three decades policymakers have been seeking new ways to secure improved performance from higher education institutions. One popular approach has been performance funding, which involves use of a formula to tie funding to institutional performance on specified indicators. This report reviews findings from studies on performance…

School breakfast is associated with a host of positive outcomes, such as improved health and attendance, reduced behavioral problems, and increased academic achievement. Unfortunately, a majority of Washington students who qualify for free or reduced-price breakfasts do not currently receive one at school, with many students eating no breakfast at…

The Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA), Title II of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-220) requires states to document whether or not adult education service providers are improving the quality of their instructional services. To reward effective providers, a number of states have adopted performance-based funding (PBF)…

A survey of 214 county officials in 8 Washington counties examined the extent of county public service funding changes from 1978-1984. Most county officials saw state and federal requirements pre-empting local decisions about budget allocations. Over half thought that their adjustments to reduced funding increased the quality of county services.…

In 1990, the Satellite Telecommunications Educational Programming (STEP) Network in Spokane (Washington) joined with state education agencies from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington to form the Pacific Northwest Star Schools partnership for distance education. The STEP network offers telecast courses to 500 schools, 90% of which are in…

Perhaps the most ambitious example of the way in which flexibility and accountability have been brought together can be found in the State Flex and Local Flex demonstration programs. Although no additional resources are provided to participating states and districts, the enhanced flexibility granted under State Flex and Local Flex allows…

The State of Washington received a Chapter 2 award of $8,224,052.00 for the school year 1986-87, a decrease of 3.3 percent from 1985-86. Planned expenditures and student services for basic skills programs declined over the past four years, but the amount of expenditures for special projects rose for the fifth consecutive year. These special…