In this brief article, John Wertman describes the evolution of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015, the role the American Association of Geographers (AAG) played over the last decade in getting it passed, and the impact the Act has on funding for K-12 geography education. The legislation, while not perfect, includes promising new…

Education data can empower educators, students, parents, and policymakers with the information they need to make the best decisions to improve student achievement, information that can move the nation toward an education system in which every student graduates prepared for college and career. Safeguarding the privacy of student data is a critical…

The All Children Are Equal Act introduced by Rep. Glenn Thomson (R-PA) in the House of Representatives last week tackles a flaw in the way Title I, the largest program authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, or ESEA, allocates funds to school districts. The bill, which enjoys bipartisan sponsorship of Rep. G.K. Butterfield…

In 2009, the Obama Administration created a $4.3 billion dollar grant competition for states called "Race to the Top" (RttT). The money, earmarked from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was to be distributed by the Department of Education to states who were making efforts to adhere to precirculated reforms supported by…

When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in 2002, the U.S. national high school graduation rate was 72.6 percent. Today, the national high school graduation rate has reached an all-time high of 81 percent and the number of low-graduation-rate high schools has declined considerably. While this progress is notable,…

This article offers an analysis of the origins, evolution, and impact of the Obama administration's Race to the Top (RTTT) competitive grant program and places it in the broader context of the debate over the No Child Left Behind Act and the shifting intergovernmental relations around education. RTTT is fundamentally about two things: creating…

The Obama administration's Race to the Top (RTT) competitive grant program has been heralded for revolutionizing the federal role in education and transforming state school reform efforts. This paper offers an initial analysis of the origins, evolution, and impact of RTT. In many ways, RTT is an attempt to circumvent the perceived failings of No…

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. Duncan's comments came in an interview in which he named as priorities reauthorization of the federal No…

The Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) Program was established as a demonstration program in 1998 and authorized as a full program in 2002 as part of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). It is one approach to help low-performing K-12 public schools meet state performance standards. CSR emphasizes two major concepts: mandating that school reform…

Flexibility and accountability are two levers for change that occupy an increasingly prominent place among federal strategies for educational improvement. In return for introducing higher academic standards and performance-based accountability systems, states and districts have been granted increasing flexibility over how they may use the funding…

Since the authors' previous article was submitted, the Reading First proposal in question was funded without revisions. This may have happened because a new governor and political party had replaced those in charge of the Reading First program. Three implications arise: persist when values collide; who controls state government matters; and…

The No Child Left Behind Act reflects a decision by Congress that federal money not be squandered searching for local solutions, but that scientifically based research be utilized to ensure that every student meets academic standards. The school improvement process requires that local stakeholders cooperatively plan an improvement process, and…

This document suggests changes to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in four targeted areas. Regarding Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) supports: (1) Setting challenging but demonstrably attainable student progress goals; (2) Judging school effectiveness by measuring progress of the same students over…

Rural education scholars may be biased advocates of small schools or they may accept the values of the scientific community. An analysis of a rural Pennsylvania district's failure to receive Reading First funding did not provide enough information to determine why the proposal was rejected. The article's arguments about "privatization"…

Case study of a poor, rural Pennsylvania school district's experience with the Reading First initiative illustrates how the No Child Left Behind Act confines districts to a few federally prescribed, "scientifically proven" curricula that ignore local conditions. Sanctioned schools are negatively labeled but receive inadequate funding,…