Calls for increased monitoring and evaluation of education policies and practices have not, so far, included widespread and consistent assessments of the inclusiveness of education settings. Measuring inclusion in education has proven to be a challenging exercise, due not only to the complexity and different uses of the concept, but also to its…

This paper discusses methods for benchmarking vocational education and training colleges and presents results from a number of models. It is conceptually difficult to benchmark vocational colleges. The colleges typically offer a wide range of course programmes, and the students come from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We solve the…

Year after year, in every state and community in our nation, students from low-income families are less likely than other students to reach advanced levels of academic performance, even when demonstrating the potential to do so. These income-based "excellence gaps" appear in elementary school and continue through high school. It is a…

Although there exists a large body of research concerning the relationship between expenditure and student achievement, a lack of research exists analyzing this relationship as it pertains specifically to students with disabilities. Given the increasing fiscal and academic pressures districts face to allocate resources efficiently, the purpose of…

In recent decades, much attention has been focused on student achievement in the United States. Many policy initiatives have been attempted in an effort to bolster achievement, including increasing school revenue, decreasing class size, expanding early childhood programs, and introducing vouchers and charter schools, to name a few, but not all of…

Policymakers aiming to close the well-documented achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students have increasingly turned their attention to issues of teacher quality. A number of studies have demonstrated that teachers are inequitably distributed across student subgroups by input measures like experience and qualifications, as well…

General acceptance of the strong relationships between education, income, and public economic strength is at the core of all of college attainment goals at the national and state levels. The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) and the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) have collaborated to develop online tools…

This report is the culmination of a yearlong effort to study the efficiency of the nation's public education system and includes the first-ever attempt to evaluate the productivity of almost every major school district in the country. In the business world, the notion of productivity describes the benefit received in exchange for effort or money…