This report presents information on the status of the safety and use of polio vaccines in the United States. Topics discussed include: (1) the role of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in processing an inactivated polio vaccine license application; (2) the steps the federal government has taken to improve the safety of the vaccine; (3) the…

This National Council on Disability (NCD) annual progress report to the President and Congress covers the period December 2005 through December 2006. The report is divided into 13 chapters, each dealing with a major area of public policy. These subject-specific chapters are preceded by an introductory Major Trends section that identifies…

The federal government's interest in gifted education is traced from the Education Amendments of 1969, and the effects of social forces, such as Sputnik, the "Great Society" ideal, and the economic requirements for trained, qualified, and creative personnel, is examined. Increased emphasis on gifted/talented education at the state level is noted,…

Critically reviews "The Public Interest on Education" (Glazer, 1984), a collection of articles which appeared in "The Public Interest" between 1974 and 1981. States that this work usefully illustrates the neoconservatives' disenchantment with a variety of federally-instigated school reforms. A shortcoming of the book is its failure to focus on the…

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interactions among federal education programs on the local level. Federal education programs work almost exclusively through the local education agency (LEA). Federal programs can work only if the LEAs can meet the aggregate requirements they impose. The burdens imposed by federal programs are of two…

Results of a review of 34 contracts relating to bilingual education awarded by the Department of Education's Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs and the Office of Planning, Budget, and Evaluation are presented. The review analyzed awards made from 1982 to 1985 and focused on: the extent of and justification for contracts…

The General Education Provisions Act (GEPA) was created in 1968 to take into consideration the specific concerns of education as they relate to the federal regulatory process. Setting down standard procedures for education regulation, the GEPA has created enforcement problems, turf battles, and mountains of regulations. In a major revamping of…

Future federal education policy should shift from complex, detailed regulations to broader grants of authority to state governments, with clear guidelines that specify national goals. Past federal activities, classified as distributive, regulatory, or redistributive, are reviewed to assess factors indicating effectiveness. (CJ)

This report concerns the governance of the structure of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), especially the law and the role of the Assessment Policy Committee (APC). The major sources of evidence include interviews with APC members and National Institute of Education (NIE) staff, minutes of APC meetings and historical documents…

Compiled for school administrators who must initiate or respond to external mandate for change, this guide draws on the experiences of 10 rural school districts that participated in the federally funded Experimental Schools (ES) program for perspectives that can be used in the successful management of change efforts in school districts. Organized…

Literature concerning U.S. proprietary vocational schools and student financial aid is reviewed, focusing on public and interprofessional attitudes, industry reforms, the schools as businesses, enrollments, student characteristics, program characteristics and costs, completions, job placement, earnings, federal student aid, aid recipients, and…

Federal support for research in vocational education dates from the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917. However, only one substantial study of vocational education research has been undertaken. In 1974, the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council was awarded funds from the Bureau of Occupational and Adult Education for a two-year examination…

While the federal government has always been a junior partner to state and local agencies in financing and operating public schools, the impact of federal policies on schools continues to be a topic of debate by researchers, policymakers, and the public. This paper reviews the rapidly expanding but dispersed literature on federal involvement in…

Abt Associates' concluding report on its research of the federally funded Experimental Schools (ES) program identifies educational needs in rural schools, introduces the substance of the ES program, and presents the major findings of the research in terms of the dynamics of rural school districts and the design and implementation of federal…

This volume analyzes government policies for helping students pay for education beyond high school and was developed as a result of an October 1994 gathering of policymakers, analysts, and practitioners convened to review federal student assistance and to consider policy alternatives for the Clinton Administration. Chapter 1, "A Fifty-Year…