This document records testimony from a hearing before the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Investment that was held to discuss reauthorizing the National Apprenticeship Act: Strengthening and Growing Apprenticeships for the 21st Century. Member statements were presented by: (1) Honorable Susan A. Davis, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on…

By the time Donald J. Trump was running for president in 2024, he had landed on a clear vision for the federal government's role in education. In short, he had concluded that the federal government's power over education should be relinquished to states, local communities, and, most importantly, families. Early into his second term, Trump has…

The Wall Street Journal declared 2011 "The Year of School Choice" citing that "no fewer than 13 states" had enacted school choice programs that year. It was a grand year for educational opportunity, but it was also the last bright light before an era of education policy malaise and disinterest. Understanding what occurred…

The ABC Quality program, South Carolina's Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), is a statewide system designed to improve the quality of early care and education services. Historically, two observation instruments are used for centers that elect to participate in the state's voluntary QRIS depending on the level of quality for which they…

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), like other state education agencies, recognizes that a key lever to turning around low-performing schools is the quality of instruction and thus embeds a schoolwide instructional quality measure into its monitoring process. Massachusetts' schoolwide quality instruction…

There is a widening college access gap in the United States. The ever-rising cost of higher education, coupled with diminished government financial support and growing income inequality, have put college out of reach for many at a critical juncture when postsecondary education is essential for enhancing career prospects. The situation has been…

Math Teachers' Circles (MTCs) bring math teachers and university mathematicians together to engage in collaborative mathematical activity. Currently there are over 110 MTCs across 40 states. A key claim is that MTCs are "communities of practice." However, to date there has been no research to substantiate this claim. In this paper, we…

This paper presents the testimony of Kevin Huffman, Tennessee Commissioner of Education, before the House Committee on Education and Labor. He talks about the work done by the Tennessee Department of Education to improve education for the nearly 950,000 public school students in Tennessee. He starts by providing some context about his and his…

California's three public higher education systems (University of California, California State University, the California Community College System) enroll nearly 3 million undergraduate students and employ almost 100 thousand faculty. In 2012, the California State Legislature directed the three systems to create an online library of open…

While it is generally understood that defined benefit pension systems concentrate benefits on career teachers, and impose costs on mobile teachers, there has been very little analysis of the magnitude of these features and patterns of variation between states. The authors develop a measure of implicit redistribution of pension wealth among…

We offer a concise history of teacher retirement plans in the United States, highlighting the increase in the generosity of the plans over the past 25 years. We employ data from plans in all fifty states to estimate the impact of a set of social and economic variables on the plans' replacement rates for a hypothetical teacher. We find that, at the…

Test developers are responsible to define how test scores should be interpreted and used. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) directed the Secretary of Education to use results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to confirm the proficiency scores from state developed tests. There are two sets of federal definitions…

Most public elementary and high school teachers are covered by health insurance provided by their employer while they are employed. In most cases, these health plans are managed at the state level. At retirement, teachers with sufficient years of service are allowed to remain in the health plan. Retiree health plans for teachers vary widely across…

Using hierarchical linear modeling, student standardized test scores are analyzed to determine the impact of mentoring first- and second-year teachers on their students' achievement. The contrasting group used for comparison consists of experienced teachers in matched schools, grade level, and content area. The study contains data from 300…

Because of the importance of developing highly skilled school leaders, statewide assessments of 784 Texas public school administrators were compared to determine how leadership skills varied by type of campus (urban, suburban and rural) and by campus student achievement ratings. Important findings indicate differences exist by campus type and by…