State-level initiatives on closing the achievement gap between white, African American, and Hispanic students are still in the early stages of development and implementation in several states. From these initiatives have come several new programs aimed at addressing all aspects that have been identified as causes for the achievement gap, from…

Teachers' unions in at least two states are threatening to withhold endorsements of their states' Race to the Top applications, which could jeopardize the states' chances of winning the coveted federal dollars. In a letter printed as an advertisement in the Tallahassee Democrat, Florida Education Association President Andy J. Ford discouraged…

Newborn screening is a test done on every child born in the US shortly after birth to detect diseases where, if not diagnosed and treated in the newborn period, the child will suffer significant trauma, disability or die. A few drops of blood from each baby's heel is put on a card and sent to the state's public health lab for testing. Most states…

A recent report published by the National Center on Performance Incentives (NCPI) presents findings from the second-year of a multi-year evaluation of the Texas Educator Excellence Grant (TEEG) program, a statewide educator incentive program that operated in Texas. As part of this evaluation report, researchers examined how first-year TEEG schools…

Through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) the federal government is pumping nearly $790 billion dollars into state and local coffers to strengthen the United States economy. In order to stimulate the economy as quickly as possible, states are being asked to invest much of this funding into regions within 30 days, and to have the…

West Virginia Code §18B-1D-8 statutorily mandates the West Virginia Higher Education Report Card. This annual accountability report provides year-end higher education statistics for both of the state's higher education systems, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (Commission) and West Virginia Council for Community and Technical…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the most necessary and the most feasibly practicable future leadership behaviors of the educational leader of a California Schools to Watch-Taking Center Stage middle school necessary to lead a school organization toward continued survival. Methodology: The participants in the present study were…

Hawaii's largest populations of at-risk youth include those youth who have dropped out of school, are at-risk of not completing high school, and youth who have completed school but are still not prepared for the workforce. Depending on estimates used, between 20 and 25 percent of Hawaiian youth are at risk of dropping out school. For older youth,…

Less than 25 percent of college students who take any developmental education courses earn a credential within eight years. Over the past three years, the six states in the Developmental Education Initiative have developed and enacted unprecedented changes in policy and practice in an effort to reverse these dismal outcomes. "Ahead of the…

In a context where more than 1,000,000 American adolescents are processed by juvenile courts annually and approximately 160,000 are sent to residential placements, this paper examines "what works" and "what doesn't work" in reducing the criminal behavior of juvenile offenders and presents examples of government initiatives that have successfully…

As college costs have continued to rise, states have offered families a way to save for their child's education. Private savings accounts, known as 529 savings plans, allow a family's investment to grow tax-free until a child is ready for college. Today, every state sponsors at least one 529 plan, and families have more than 10 million accounts,…

In response to the rising demand for market-responsive education reform across the U.S., since 1998 more than twenty states have created Individual Learning or Graduation Plan (ILP/IGP) state policies. Using extensive policy document analyses and stakeholder interview data from four early-adopting ILP/IGP states, the goal of this four-state case…

Teaching artists work in a field with a long, rich history, and many roots and strands of development. One of TAJ's roles is to try to make this history more accessible and useful to working teaching artists. In this article, the author outlines the evolution of teaching artistry in the United States.

State coordinators of early hearing detection and intervention (EHDI) programs completed a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, or SWOT, analysis that examined 12 areas within state EHDI programs. Related to how EHDI programs address loss to follow-up, 47 coordinators responded with 277 items, and themes were identified in each…

Although benefits can be a sizable part of an educator's total compensation, there has been little scholarly inquiry into the state pension plans for educators. Despite the fact that all defined benefit plans rely on the same basic formula for calculating annual pensions, they vary across states in the multiplier used, the method for calculating…