Nearly 20 years ago, before e-mails, listservs, and blogs, the author had participated in an intense discussion with a group of early childhood education and care (ECEC) program directors about the pros and cons of publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K). They debated about how universal pre-K (UPK) might impact the cost of infant and toddler…

One problem raised by minimum competency testing is the search for effective means of remediating the learning problems of students failing the competency exams. Local school districts must rely on currently existing programs, particularly ESEA Title I programs, which have been shown to have had a limited impact on student progress in the past.…

Analysis of patterns of federal and state spending on student aid, enrollment patterns, and policies that sometimes work at cross-purposes suggests that, although the machinery is in place for an equitable system, the American people must adjust their spending priorities to invest more seriously in the country's human resources. (MSE)

The development of the relationship between nonpublic schools and state and federal governments has raised a number of questions regarding public aid to nonpublic education. This study focuses on one of these questions, the problem of state agencies' responsibility for the evaluation, governance, planning, and monitoring of programs providing…

Since the University of California (UC) Board of Regents banned the consideration of race, ethnicity and gender in admissions, college outreach programs have been the primary vehicle of achieving diversity among the UC student body. Outreach programs constitute an array of tools and services that help improve the college preparedness and…

This book provides a group of articles concerning the equity and efficiency of prepaid college tuition plans. Chapters: (1) introduce the subject; (2) examine the competing financial theories at play in this field; (3) present a study of the Michigan Education Trust's decision to expand its subscriber base by offering a monthly payment option; (4)…

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act is designed to help vocational education by channeling federal money to programs that integrate academic and vocational education, targeting money to programs that produce results, emphasizing programs serving disadvantaged people, and easing state regulatory burdens by pushing…

Flaws in the New Communities program that are discussed in this essay include: (1) defective financial arrangements; (2) a lack of strategic aims and/or a special constituency; (3) inadequate backing by State and local governments; (4) poor leadership; (5) insufficient provisions for dealing with a poor national economy; and (6) private developer…

The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997 signaled a major increase in time, energy, creativity, and money devoted to enrolling eligible children in health insurance programs. Child advocates and others have focused on developing outreach and enrollment strategies to bring the benefits of these new SCHIP programs to children…

As long as vocational education is presented as an investment in the future, it must stand the test of economic evaluation. Research on its economic effectiveness is essential to more informed public policy and support for vocational programs. (SK)

In order to determine how vocational education programs should be evaluated, it is first necessary to define vocational education, to describe how vocational education programs are now being evaluated, to find out how other federal education programs are evaluated, and to suggest what criteria might reasonably be set out in future federal…

Because of a perceived lack in the development and use of evaluation procedures for vocational education in Illinois, a new evaluation system was begun in 1984. It required that at least 20 percent of funded vocational programs be evaluated annually, in compliance with requirements of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act. The evaluation…

This discussion of how the effectiveness of federal student aid can be evaluated is framed in terms of three questions: (1) Has federal student aid expanded educational opportunity; that is, has it encouraged the enrollment and broadened the educational choices of disadvantaged students? (2) Has federal student aid made the distribution of higher…

This publication contains the testimony of a hearing held to learn about the regional curriculum needs and priorities of individuals and groups from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The East Central Curriculum Coordination Center is described as the largest of the six curriculum…

A study was conducted in Illinois to determine how effectively the vocational education system was meeting its responsibilities to train, retrain, and upgrade employed and unemployed workers in new skills for which there is a demand in the state, under the terms of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Education Act of 1984. Responses were received from…