The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

Caught between extraordinary public expectations and relatively modest constitutional authority, U.S. presidents historically have fashioned all sorts of mechanisms--executive orders, proclamations, memoranda--by which to move their objectives forward. William Howell asserts that under President Barack Obama's administration, presidential…

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says he is eager to use a proposed $15 billion federal incentive-grant fund in part to reward states, districts, and even nonprofit organizations that have set high standards for the students they serve. "With this fund, we really have a chance to drive dramatic changes, to take to scale what works, invest…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) requires states and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) to define and determine whether schools are making adequate yearly progress (AYP) toward meeting the goal of 100 percent academic proficiency. To address tribes' needs for cultural preservation, NCLBA allows tribal groups to…

From 1973 to 1978, the Rand Corporation conducted a national study of local public schools' responses to various federal programs requiring educational change--Title III of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), Title VII of the ESEA, programs financed by the 1968 Vocational Education Act, and the Right-to-Read program. This paper…

Summarizes ongoing research on the children of mothers assigned to participate in the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills training program (JOBS). Identifies the problems inherent in generalizing from the available data and underscores the need for future research steps to understand the implications for children of programs to enhance the…

Discussion of national language policy concerning adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) education examines conditions in American demographics and adult education, looks at kinds of policy required to meet predicted educational needs, and encourages ESL educators to become involved in the policy formation process. The first section discusses…

A needs assessment of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is presented. It deals with cost, design and technical issues, and utility. Suggestions include cost reduction via assessment schedule cutbacks and re-use of released NAEP exercises; and a shift from federal to private funding by selling NAEP exercises with interpretative…

Vesting Congress with implied powers over American Indians produces attitudes and assumptions which are extremely influential. There are seven such controlling assumptions: Congress is presumed to act in good faith toward Indians; the belief that past policies were based upon some intelligent criteria that incorporated an understanding of…

This report concerns the governance of the structure of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), especially the law and the role of the Assessment Policy Committee (APC). The major sources of evidence include interviews with APC members and National Institute of Education (NIE) staff, minutes of APC meetings and historical documents…

This report assesses the impact of federal child health policy under Titles V and XIX of the Social Security Act upon the states of Connecticut and Vermont for the years 1935 to 1975, and analyzes the reasons for the discrepancy between policy intent and state execution. Two simultaneous approaches are used for data analysis: a cross sectional…

The Satellite Technology Demonstration (STD), through its unique field services network (the STD's Utilization Component), was able to develop and insure Project credibility among its many regional, state, and local participants. How the field service mechanism was used to maintain positive relationships between the STD and its many constituents…

Uses government data to analyze the distributive effects of non-means-tested cash and non-cash public transfer programs in reducing poverty among children. Data were analyzed for white, black, and Hispanic children, and for the elderly. Suggests these transfers are important sources of income for disadvantaged children, among whom black and…

The National Advisory Commission on Work-Based Learning worked to identify practical steps that the Labor Department could take to help increase the skill levels of the U.S. work force and expand work-based training. The findings gained from a series of roundtables and further studies were synthesized into a set of recommendations in five major…

Cites data from 214 welfare families to support the argument that tougher child-support enforcement can reduce welfare dependency. Suggests that the best way to mend the child-support system for welfare-reliant children is to create a system that takes into account the real-life situations of mothers and fathers, as well as norms regarding…