What can the federal government do to help ensure that the public schools attended by children living in poverty have enough resources to serve their students? In this brief, we describe existing federal efforts to support education spending in high-poverty districts, discuss their limitations, and suggest alternative approaches for federal…

Direct certification has been described by policymakers and academics as a tool which may replace National School Lunch Program (NSLP) eligibility data (Douglas Geverdt, National Center for Education Statistics, personal communication, August 28, 2023). It suggests a policy future in which we change the metric of how we identify disadvantage. On…

The income-achievement gap is a significant and stubborn problem in the United States, which has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we link two emerging literatures that have historically been disparate: the neurobiology of poverty as a form of early life stress, and research on educational policies with the potential to…

This study uses framing theory and the concept of causal stories to examine beliefs about causes and solutions to improving chronically low-performing schools in response to Michigan's school turnaround policy. Across cases, policymakers and district leaders assigned most responsibility to poor leadership, poverty, and chronic educator turnover as…

Many prior studies have documented disparities in school discipline practices across racial, economic, and other student characteristics. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which students affected by intergenerational poverty (IGP) received infractions (incidents) and experienced exclusionary disciplines (suspensions…

Among the 50 states, 44 use free and reduced-price lunch enrollment to identify low-income students. These data are also commonly used to allocate federal, state, and local funding to schools serving low-income children. School and district poverty rates, as determined by free and reduced-price lunch enrollment, additionally feature prominently in…

High school Career and Technical Education (CTE) has received increased attention from policymakers and researchers in recent years. This study fills a needed gap in the growing research base by examining heterogeneity within the wide range of programs falling under the broad moniker of CTE, highlighting the need for nuance in research and policy…

Following the widespread adoption and implementation of Education for All (EFA) at the World Education Forum held at Dakar as part of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000, school enrolment at the basic level of education has increased in Sub-Saharan Africa. With the region having the lowest rate of youth enrolled in upper secondary schools in…

There is a growing sense that the orthodox set of theories and policies for VET do not work. This is particularly true in the South where all such Northern theories and policies face the common problem of being constructed for other contexts and then imported. In the light of persistent poverty and inequality; widespread precarious and indecent…

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2016 about 1 in 5 children in the United Stated lives in poverty (19%) Students in our music classrooms and ensembles do not begin life from the same starting line. They come from homes and communities that are vastly different. The intersections of poverty, disability, racial…

Principals in the United States are faced with challenging and complex roles as the leaders of our schools. Levels of district, state, and federal mandates and accountability measures coupled with the demands of supporting students, parents, and teachers on a multitude of levels create a job that is almost impossible to keep up with. In addition,…

Drawing on Carol Bacchi's post-structural analytical approach, this study examines the nature of recent policy reforms in China in relation to vocational education (VE). The article reveals key problem representations that characterise the "Implementation Plan of National Vocational Education Reform" (IPNVER) issued by the State Council…

Poverty alleviation through education is counted as a critical move in China's campaign against poverty, aiming to elevate the education levels of the underprivileged population, halt the intergenerational transmission of poverty, and assist social equity and economic development. This article is a review of the evolution of China's policies on…

For decades, schools nationwide have collected household income data to identify those eligible for free and reduced-price lunch programs. State leaders have long used this information as a proxy for student economic disadvantage--yet this data is insufficient to understand and address students' needs. Measures based on FRL data lack critical…

Dominican-born children of Haitian descent are frequently excluded from the public education system in the Dominican Republic. Barriers to participation include poverty, discriminatory government policies, and structural barriers within school settings. Females of Haitian descent face additional barriers due to gender discrimination. The current…