Ensuring students' equitable access to talented educators remains a national priority. Congress established the Teacher and School Leader (TSL) Incentive competitive grant program in 2015 to help address this goal, providing financial support to selected school districts to improve their systems for hiring, supporting, and retaining educators,…

Ensuring students' equitable access to talented educators remains a national priority. Congress established the Teacher and School Leader (TSL) Incentive competitive grant program in 2015 to help address this goal, providing financial support to selected school districts to improve their systems for hiring, supporting, and retaining educators,…

Federal policy recognizes the importance of effective educators, particularly in high-needs schools. Research has shown that the most critical school-related factor that influences student learning and achievement is teacher quality (Hanushek, 2011). The Texas Center for Educator Excellence (TxCEE) aims to address the research-based and…

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…

This publication presents some structural indicators on higher education in 40 European education and training systems. It examines whether there are targets for widening participation of under-represented groups in higher education and whether countries monitor the characteristics of the student body. Moreover, it looks at whether, and to what…

This annual report shows how fee and support systems (including grants and loans) work in higher education in Europe. It provides both a comparative overview of fees and financial support available to full-time students in 2016/17, and also includes individual country sheets outlining the main elements of national systems. In particular, the…

This annual report shows how fee and support systems (including grants and loans) work in higher education in Europe. It provides both a comparative overview of fees and financial support available to full-time students in 2017/18, and also includes individual country sheets outlining the main elements of national systems. In particular, the…

President Barack Obama's latest budget proposal envisions a sweeping, multi-billion-dollar expansion of prekindergarten programs and doubles down on the administration's strategy of using competitive grants to drive big change in states and districts--all as school districts try to cope with the largest cuts to federal education spending in recent…

Over the past several years, public higher education, both in the U.S. and internationally, has increasingly been required to explain, defend, and validate its performance and value to a wide variety of constituents, including governors, legislators, students, parents, employers, and taxpayers. In addition, in 2006, then U.S. Secretary of…

Three big-city districts--Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York--have terminated federal grants aimed at promoting performance-based compensation plans and professional development for teachers and principals. Overall, the 2010 Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grants to the three districts would have provided an $88 million payout over five years--nearly 7…

Almost two years into the federal Race to the Top program, states are spending their shares of the $4 billion prize at a snail's pace--a reflection of the challenges the 12 winners face as they try to get ambitious education improvement plans off the ground. Through the end of March, the 11 states and the District of Columbia had spent just 14…

Two years after the U.S. Department of Education awarded $650 million in Investing in Innovation grants, some of the winners are still facing financial uncertainty. Other grantees have also encountered problems with matching funds coming through, and some nonprofit grantees have been forced to contribute their own money to match the initial…

The "Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006" ("Perkins IV" or "Act") authorizes federal funding for career and technical education (CTE) and specifies a formula for distributing those funds. Allocations at the secondary level are based on the number of youths ages 5-17 who reside within a local…

According to a Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) press release, in which the Governor outlined his budget priorities for 2014-2015, the Governor's plan includes the Expanding Excellence Program. If enacted and funded, this initiative would "provide competitive funding to schools that have attained a 90 or higher on the School…

Creating smart, coherent education policy is painstaking work; there are technical, budgetary, and political challenges at almost every turn. But it is some of the most important work that state leaders can undertake. As Ohioans prepared to elect a new governor in late 2018, we at the Fordham Institute began rolling out a set of policy proposals…