Faced with accountability pressures and limited resources, education policymakers make difficult choices regarding school curricula. In recent years, studies have documented a decreased emphasis in arts and humanities instruction. One potential way for schools to fill this gap includes partnering with arts and cultural organizations to provide…

There is widespread agreement that many of California's high schools are doing a poor job of preparing their students for college and careers. The James Irvine Foundation is sponsoring a major initiative to develop "Multiple Pathways"--now called the Linked Learning approach--as a strategy for improving the performance of California high…

Funders and program planners want to know: What does it cost to operate a high-quality after-school or summer program? This study answers that question, discovering that there is no "right" number. Cost varies substantially, depending on the characteristics of the participants, the goals of the program, who operates it and where it is located.…

During the spring of 2004, the State of Colorado enacted legislation that fundamentally changed the mechanisms through which it financed its public higher education system, beginning with the 2005-06 academic year. Rather than appropriating funds directly to institutions, the legislation created the College Opportunity Fund (COF), the principal…

Although for most of the nation's history, coeducation has been the norm in public elementary and secondary school, recent years have marked an increasing interest in public single-sex education. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) authorized school districts to use local or innovative program funds to offer single-sex schools and…

This document and a companion National Report are the results of a study of the management of catering services in higher education by the United Kingdom Value for Money Steering Group. The national report identifies key management issues for the senior management team in developing a review of catering services, to ensure that they are effective…

In U.S. K-12 public education, incentive pay for educators remains firmly fixed as a high-interest policy topic and has recently become a popular reform initiative in many school systems. The Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF), created in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education, is at the forefront of this policy movement and has provided hundreds of…

This report presents findings stemming from the first-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program, one of several statewide performance incentive programs in Texas. In June 2006, Governor Perry and the 79th Texas Legislature created the Governor's Educator Excellence Award Program, one component of which is the TEEG…

As of October 2007, 54 interdistrict magnet schools enrolling 18,928 students were operating in Connecticut. The bulk of these schools are located in the Hartford and New Haven areas--21 in the Hartford area and 17 in the New Haven area. Interdistrict magnets also serve significant numbers of students in the Waterbury region. In keeping with the…

Over the past decade, the standards-based reform movement in education has focused attention on the responsibility of schools and school systems to produce results in student learning. Nationally this focus is most evident with the implementation of accountability provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. However, even…

This report presents findings from the second-year evaluation of the Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program. The GEEG program was federally- and state-funded and provided three-year grants to schools to design and implement performance pay plans from the 2005-06 to 2007-08 school years. GEEG was implemented in 99 high poverty, high…

This report presents findings from the second year of a multi-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program and background information about the design and implementation of the District Awards for Teacher Excellence (DATE) program. The TEEG and DATE programs operating in Texas make up the largest state-funded performance…