During the late 1990s public pension funds across the United States accrued large actuarial surpluses. The seemingly flush conditions of the pension funds led legislators in most states to substantially improve retirement benefits for public workers, including teachers. In this study we examine the benefit enhancements to the teacher pension…

As education budgets continue to tighten, increased attention is focused on how school districts can best distribute existing funds to schools and how schools can best use these funds. Student-based funding (SBF)--sometimes referred to as a weighted student formula--is one approach that school districts have taken during the past decade. SBF…

The Obama administration has no plans to renew the Bush-era competitiveness grants and their companion, the National Smart Grants, beyond their 2011 expiration date, meaning a likely end for America's short-lived experiment with merit-based federal financial aid. Instead, the administration will focus its resources on the popular Pell Grant…

The 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico took advantage of the nation's strong economy during the 2007-8 budget year and spent a total of nearly $10-billion on student aid. That was an increase of 6.6 percent from the year before when adjusted for inflation, according to an annual report released this week by the National…

This document is the final report on Central State University's implementation of Section 371 of Ohio Amended Substitute House Bill 153. Implementation of Phase I action items required that deliverables and timelines be shifted to give Central State the best opportunity for early success. In Phase II, Central State responded aggressively to a…

When the Connecticut State Department of Education published its first district report cards in 2003, it was obvious that the Hartford Public Schools district was struggling. Fewer than half of its students were proficient on the state reading exam. Math performance was better, but 63 percent of 10th-graders and 43 percent of younger students…

The Race to the Top fund (RTT) is intended to be a major federal investment in state and local education capacity and systemic education reforms aligned with federal policy priorities. In coming years, questions will be asked about the extent to which investments made through the RTT grant program improve educational productivity and…

Online course delivery has been used for many years in higher education. Like many institutions, Tarleton State University has used online education as a means to increase student enrollment and satisfy the changing education needs of both traditional and non-traditional students. The purpose of this study was to examine the origins of online…

A news release by the BC Ministry of Education on December 9, 2011 describes upcoming changes to the funding formula for the 2012-13 Operating Grants and announces increases in CommunityLink funding for 2012-13 and 2013-14. This research report analyzes the potential impact of these changes and compares BC's performance in improving education…

We examine the flow of federal grants-in-aid from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the states. We simultaneously model two dependent variables (the flow of EPA funds, and state environmental and natural resource budgets) to identify the independent roles of state political institutions, political preferences, economic and…

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act will be coming up for reauthorization amid a number of contentious issues, and debates over these issues are likely to more heated leading up to the 2012 elections. If ESEA is to be renewed, the President must make it a high priority, Republicans will need to work with Democrats, and national education…

In compliance with the provisions of A.C.A.§§6-20-2201 et seq., the Annual Statistical Report of the Public Schools of Arkansas, Public Charter Schools, and Education Service Cooperatives, 2013-2014 Actual and 2014-2015 Budgeted, (ASR) is presented here. The Rankings of Selected Items of the Public Schools of Arkansas, 2013-2014 Actual, (Rankings)…

In 2011, the Louisiana Board of Regents (BoR), through the development and implementation of the Master Plan, advanced its vision for the future of postsecondary education by adopting the following three broad goals: (1) Increase the educational attainment of the State's adult population to the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) States'…

Many federal assistance programs are funded by formula grants that have historically relied at least in part on population data from the decennial census and related data to allocate funds. In June 2009, the Census Bureau reported that in fiscal year 2007 the federal government obligated over $446 billion through funding formulas that rely at…

The 2009-11 state general fund appropriation is $597.9 million for the eleven campuses, University of North Dakota (UND) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), Forest Service and North Dakota University System Office, which is an increase of $153.4 million over the 2007-09 adjusted appropriation, less 07-09 one-time funding. This includes…