Opponents of educational choice recycle the same false prophesies of doom without regard to the evidence or the size and scope of the proposals. Part I of this report assesses the validity of choice opponents' predictions that choice policies will lead to significant losses of district school funding and declining academic performance. Part II of…

The demographic profile of the United States has been rapidly changing; by 2020, minority students will constitute the majority of the public school student population nationwide. This makes cultural competence a necessity for today's school leaders. Educational leadership preparation programs are responsible for preparing culturally competent…

One year ago, the "Wall Street Journal" dubbed 2011 "the year of school choice," opining that "this year is shaping up as the best for reformers in a very long time." School-choice laws took great strides in 2011, both in the number of programs that succeeded across states and also in the size and scope of the adopted…

Post-recession Federal policy initiatives, such as secondary/postsecondary career pathways and gainful employment higher education accountability standards, prioritize the alignment of education practices with market-driven outcomes. Using longitudinal student record data merged from college and state K-12 data systems with the Unemployment…

This report collects the results of all available empirical studies using the best available scientific methods to measure how school vouchers affect academic outcomes for participants, and all available studies on how vouchers affect outcomes in public schools. Contrary to the widespread claim that vouchers do not benefit participants and hurt…

We use the random assignment of a private Wisconsin need-based grant to estimate the impacts of financial aid on college persistence among Pell Grant recipients at 13 public universities over three years. For equity and efficiency reasons, governments use conditional cash transfers to reduce the relationship between family income and college…

This article reports findings from an impact study of a 2-year postsecondary academic program offered in state prisons. Outcomes examined for participants during their 1st year of participation include performance on a standardized test of critical thinking skills, credit acquisition, achievement motivation, educational aspirations, personal…

The effectiveness of state enterprise zone programs was examined by using a hypothetical-firm model called the Tax and Incentives Model-Enterprise Zones (TAIM-ez) model to analyze the value of enterprise zone incentives to businesses across the United States and especially in the 13 states that had substantial enterprise zone programs by 1990. The…