With systems of accountability for student achievement now widely in place, state policymakers and others are applying the principle on another front by trying to hold schools more responsible for how they spend their money. Auditors in some states regularly calculate the percentages that districts spend on classroom resources compared with…

This article reports how two prominent Democrats are demanding to know more about the problems identified in the implementation of the federal Reading First program, including whether criminal violations may have occurred and what Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings may have known about the problems while she was a White House aide. In the…

In this article, the author talks about the debate that flared regarding aid given to states. Officials of the Bush administration countered complaints that Republicans are inadequately financing the No Child Left Behind Act. They said the states didn't spend all of the federal K-12 money available to them in a timely manner. State officials…

The services in Arkansas are provided by a federal grant program intended to expand public school choice, even though many others served under the grant have never attended a public school. The U.S. Department of Education's decision to award $4.1 million over the past two years to a project involving William J. Bennett's company--which provides…