Describes efforts of the federally-funded TRIO Student Support Services program at Kankakee Community College in Illinois. The program helps simplify the educational process for low-income, first-generation, or disabled college students. Describes how the program helps students through encouraging career clarity, intensive academic planning,…

Today, the word "assessment" is apt to conjure up unpleasant thoughts of the often acrimonious controversy involving high-stakes testing. As important as that debate may be, the authors of this article argue that there is an issue of far greater consequence facing reading educators. To what extent is the instruction they provide informed by the…

A program designed to provide student aid has spun out of control, becoming a cash cow for colleges and universities. The Department of Education has not adequately controlled the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Originally, traditional lending institutions…

This article reports that Republican and Democratic leaders of the U.S. Senate education committee have joined the debate over the implementation of Reading First, with a call for an investigation into the federal program by the watchdog arm of Congress. The request to the Government Accountability Office follows allegations that federal officials…

Purpose: This article presents results of a survey of the attitudes and practices of managed care organizations (MCOs) concerning consumer direction. The study focused on understanding several alternative measures of consumer direction and the factors that are associated with the MCOs concerning those measures. Design and Methods: The MCOs that…

This volume presents briefing papers presented at the 12th annual National Indian Education Association (NIEA) Summit. The following papers are included: (1) 2009 Budget and Past Funding Levels for Native Education; (2) NIEA Appropriations Priorities for FY 2009 and FY 2010; (3) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; (4) National Indian…

The "28th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2006" follows the 2005--i.e., the 27th annual report--in sequence. The "28th Annual Report to Congress" has two volumes. Volume 1 presents a picture of how children and students are being served under the law nationwide…

Although the number of high-needs schools that are failing to achieve "Adequate Yearly Progress" (AYP) steadily increases, some are successfully increasing student achievement, staff productivity and collegiality. The purpose of this study was to use a three-round Delphi process to obtain the expert opinions of 10 administrators who…

This paper examines labor market conditions and public employment policies in the United States during what some are calling the Great Recession. We document the dramatic labor market changes that rapidly unfolded when the rate of gross domestic product growth turned negative, from the end of 2007 through early 2009. The paper reviews the…

Since the first child care Quality Rating System (QRS) was implemented in Oklahoma 11 years ago (in 1998), 16 additional statewide systems have been launched and numerous states are piloting or developing a QRS (Zaslow, Tout, & Martinez-Beck, forthcoming). As QRS stakeholders across the nation look ahead to the next decade, it is important to take…

State and local governments spend billions of dollars annually on the construction, renovation, and maintenance of public school facilities, yet concerns persist about the condition of some school facilities, particularly in school districts serving students residing on Indian lands. The Department of Education's (Education) Impact Aid Program…

The research problem for this qualitative study was "Effective response to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) by school leadership is critical to public school success or failure in Indiana. Because high schools have been the first and most-often to 'fail' under NCLB, knowing principals' concerns and the leadership and implementation of strategies…

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the use of interim assessments and the policy supports that promote their use to change instruction, focusing on elementary school mathematics. The authors use the term "interim assessments" to refer to assessments that: a) evaluate student knowledge and skills, typically within a…

During their three-year research project, the authors found that most practitioners, researchers, and policymakers in the education field were not familiar with Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) or the existing research on IDAs. Therefore, in this paper the authors compiled a list of some of the references that they found useful and that they…

In Fall 2009 and Spring 2010, 30 teaching residency programs received funding through one of 28 Teacher Quality partnership grants awarded to establish or expand residency programs. These programs follow a model of teacher preparation in which prospective teachers complete graduate-level coursework alongside a year-long fieldwork experience in the…