Nationally, 28 percent of all public elementary and secondary schools were in rural locations in 2013-14, serving 18 percent of all K-12 students (U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics 2015). Rural schools serve students in sparsely populated areas and have smaller overall populations than schools in other…

This compilation includes materials celebrating the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Department of Education's Federal TRIO programs. The Federal TRIO programs were named such in 1968 after a trio of programs designed to foster increased educational opportunity and attainment: Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services. Since 1968, the…

Almost two years into the federal Race to the Top program, states are spending their shares of the $4 billion prize at a snail's pace--a reflection of the challenges the 12 winners face as they try to get ambitious education improvement plans off the ground. Through the end of March, the 11 states and the District of Columbia had spent just 14…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA or the Recovery Act) of 2009 provided an unprecedented level of funding designed to "stimulate the economy in the short-term and invest wisely, using these funds to improve schools, raise achievement, drive reforms and produce better results for children and young people for the long-term…

The School Improvement Grants (SIG) program, which was created in 2002, funds reforms in the country's lowest-performing schools with the goal of improving student outcomes, such as standardized test scores and graduation rates. Congress greatly increased SIG program funding from $125 million available in fiscal year 2007--the first year the…

The purpose of this research was to address the public policy of adequacy by the creation of a Florida state-wide poverty index model to assist in the distribution of state and local dollars in funding public education. This poverty index model would measure the amount and severity of poverty in every public school within the state each year and…

Administrators in America's rural school districts are uniquely challenged to meet increased achievement expectations despite decreasing resources. Mandated reform initiatives, population decline, and the complex formulas used to distribute tax-based funding have disproportionately affected rural schools. In this mixed-methods study, researchers…

This report looks at the early efforts of states to implement the elementary and secondary education provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The findings are drawn from a survey of officials in state education agencies and governors' offices in 44 states and the District of Columbia. Key findings concern the financial…

President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Recovery Act or ARRA) into law on February 17, 2009. This federal stimulus package provided an unprecedented infusion of new education aid for the nation's schools--more than $100 billion. To determine how the unprecedented federal infusion of education funding was…

This annual report provides a national perspective on Title II-D for federal fiscal year (FY) 2008 (2008-09 school year), as well as emergent trends based on data from the past seven years. Title II-D is the only federal education program with funds explicitly targeted to support state and local effective uses of educational technology in the …

This study is the sixth in a series of studies conducted by the American Association of School Administrators on the impact of the economic downturn on schools. AASA launched the series in fall 2008 in response to state budget shortfalls, federal buy-outs and interventions, and a series of additional events characterizing a slowing, stagnant…

The papers presented at this conference review current research on effective educational practices for low-achieving students and identify those that might be applied to programs funded under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. A function assumed by several conference participants was to act as reactor to papers…

This paper argues for two major changes in the selection of students and in the way that services are delivered under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. The first change would make available Chapter 1 funds only to schools with very high proportions of children whose families live in poverty. The second change…