The Build Back Better (BBB) Act's "Birth through Five Child Care and Early Learning Program," would provide access to child care for approximately 20 million children and free universal preschool for 6 million children. The bill's historic investments would also improve the quality of programs, increase pay for providers, and reduce…

This research study was to obtain, through the application of a qualitative narrative design of open-ended questions, the perceptions of school administrators regarding the effectiveness of the 2015 modified legislated implementation of House Bill 2398 and Texas Truancy Prevention Measures programs (TTPM). The TTPM policies and procedures are…

With the implementation of AB 705 in fall 2019, California Community Colleges began to transition to a majority of students' first English and math enrollment starting at transfer level. Research has shown that with the vast increase in access to transfer-level courses, the one-year completion rate of a transfer-level course (i.e., throughput)…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Combatting Classroom Censorship." Contents include: (1) A Wolf in Sheep's…

Open enrollment is an integral part of state public school choice policies. This datapoint captures enrollment provisions that apply specifically to students in foster care, including enrollment priority and educational continuity. [View the full "50-State Comparison: Open Enrollment Policies 2022" here:…

Under the McKinney-Vento Act, students who experience homelessness have the right to remain in their school of origin or to immediate enrollment in a new school. Eligible English learners (ELs) who are homeless have the right to access language assistance services. States must ensure that homeless children and youths have equal access to free,…

The Colorado Children's Campaign began 2021 focused on their mission as the pandemic laid bare the many systemic barriers faced by kids and families in Colorado. Despite the economic downturn and unpredictable school schedules, the new year brought with it an urgency to restructure socioeconomic systems to benefit all Coloradans. This 2021 Annual…

This report argues that the Michigan state constitution's "Blaine Amendment," a provision which prevents parents from drawing on state funding to go outside the public school system, is superseded by the United States Supreme Court's 2020 ruling in the case Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. The report discusses a legislative…

The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to (a) learn more about first-year parents' expectations of communication with the university, (b) learn more about communication practices of university faculty and staff regarding communication with parents, (c) examine the reasons behind the expectations and practices of both parent groups and…

Private school choice programs are publicly-funded programs that provide families with funding to attend a private school of their choice. Since 2021, 15 states have enacted or expanded choice legislation, even making homeschoolers eligible to participate. However, homeschoolers are often reluctant to participate due to proposed regulations. We…

In this dissertation, I quantify the impact of uncertainty on schooling postsecondary choices, study the returns to higher education degrees, and analyze the effects of policies that intend to reduce college education costs. In the second and third chapters, I employ structural Roy models and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth…

Legislative professionalism is central to the politico-institutional context of postsecondary policy adoption in state governments. The core argument in existing research is that as legislative professionalism increases, structural capacity for decision-making increases. Evidence for this argument is mixed, exclusively quantitative, and assumes a…

As of May 2022, 42 state legislatures had introduced bills that would limit how (and whether) teachers can address inequities based on race, gender, and other marginalized identities. At the same time, book bans are becoming increasingly common across the country. Given the importance of providing children opportunities to critically engage with…

Rural elementary school principals and reading coaches were interviewed about their perspectives and implementation approaches of 2021's Florida Statute 1008.25, which addressed the assessment, remediation, progress monitoring, and parental notification of students with substantial reading impairments. Rural school districts were selected based on…

Background: Knowledge brokering is suggested as an instrument to improve productive use of research in policy organisations. Previous research asserted that research utilisation is dependent on dynamics of knowledge exchange in institutional settings, but these claims have not received substantial empirical attention (Saarela et al, 2015; Akerlof…