Congress enacted section 117 of the Higher Education Act, as amended, (Section 117) mandating financial transparency of institutions of higher education (institution) through required reporting of gifts from and contracts with a foreign source. Applicable institutions must file a disclosure report by one of the two annual reporting deadlines,…

Federal Student Aid (FSA) processes more than 17.6 million Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms each year to help students pay for college and provide students with approximately $120.8 billion in grant, work-study, and loan funds. The FAFSA Simplification Act of 2021 required FSA to overhaul its systems and processes to…

Veterans' educational assistance programs provide financial assistance to individuals, whose eligibility is based on their or a family member's experience in the uniformed services, while they are enrolled in approved programs of education. The GI Bills--particularly the Post-9/11 GI Bill--are the most popular veterans' educational assistance…

Title I is the largest federal aid program in the United States. Title I funding is utilized to provide supplemental aid to campuses serving Title I students for two types of programs: targeted assistance or school-wide. One Texas public middle school applied to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for the school-wide Texas Title I Priority Schools…

According to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended (ESEA), a State wanting to receive Federal funds must submit a plan indicating which of nine programs it wants to receive funds for. This is the final report on the results of the audit of the U.S. Department of Education's processes for reviewing and approving State plans…

As U.S. school leaders anticipate the end of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds and contemplate possible budget shortfalls, they will have to make hard choices about how best to leverage limited resources to improve student outcomes. With the stakes high, lawmakers and experts urge school system leaders to rely on research and…

The objective of this audit was to determine whether the U.S. Department of Education's (Department) overall information technology (IT) security programs and practices were effective as they relate to Federal information security requirements. In fiscal year (FY) 2020, the focus of the audit was solely on Departmental Systems. This year the focus…

As the early education coordinator for Prince George's County Public Schools, Judith P. Hoyer recognized the gaps in available services for low-income families. In the 1990s, she created a central location in Adelphi, Maryland, for early childhood services, thus fostering cooperation of governmental and private agencies around the needs of local…

In 2012, the United States Department of Education announced the Race to the Top-District grants. One joint award was made to two large educational cooperatives in the same state that together represented 111 mostly rural schools in 22 districts. One of the grant's identified four essential projects was the implementation of personalized learning.…

Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) invited 10 districts to participate in a community of practice designed to increase understanding of how to braid and blend federal funds. District teams composed of principals, superintendents, business managers, and other district leaders participated in four 90-minute virtual sessions. The purpose of…

Solid, well-grounded teachers can be instrumental in solving the problems facing our schools and students because it is successful teachers who are the most valuable, in-school contributors to our students' success. The importance of teacher preparation programs (TPPs) in developing quality teachers has been reinforced by researchers who have…

The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grants program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), aimed to increase the number of high quality early learning and development programs. RTT-ELC awarded $520 million in the first of three rounds of grants to help states…

The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grants program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, aimed to improve children's access to high quality early learning and development programs. RTT-ELC awarded $520 million in the first of three rounds of grants to help states…

Once dubbed Vocational Education, Career and Technical Education (CTE) celebrated its centennial anniversary in 2017. The federal Smith-Hughes National Vocational Education Act signed in 1917 marked the first nationwide investment in career training at the secondary level. That initial investment has continued through the Vocational Education Act,…

Educational policies such as Race to the Top in the USA affirm a central role for testing systems in government-driven reform efforts. Such reform policies are often referred to as the global education reform movement (GERM). Changes observed with the GERM style of testing demand socially engaged validity theories that include consequential…