The Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) program, authorized by Congress in 2011, is designed to improve the quality of early learning and development programs for children from birth through age 5. This discretionary grant program is administered jointly by the U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services…

It is hard to overestimate the significance of the master planning process. The process is one of the most salient strategies that the Maryland State Department of Education utilizes for improving student achievement and closing the achievement gap. Until recently, many local school systems (LSSs) treated planning as a local endeavor that merely…

A field study by Greenleigh Associates of the state and local adult basic education (ABE) program in Maryland found in part that: (1) 3% of educationally disadvantaged groups participated in ABE and less than 1% achieved an 8th grade level education through ABE; (2) inconsistencies were noted at the state level between actual operational…