School finance formulas vary from state to state, impacting school district educational outcomes. Rural school districts are especially affected due to inherent challenges in producing high student achievement scores. This study examined whether variables including socioeconomic status and per-pupil local tax level impacted student achievement…

For the first time in U.S. history, a proposal for nationwide free community college passed through the House of Representatives in the fall of 2021. Although the provision was ultimately dropped from President Joe Biden's Build Back Better bill, its early presence suggests the political appeal of making college accessible to more Americans. These…

As school systems work to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, states continue to grapple with persistent teacher shortages, a lack of teachers of color in the workforce, and high turnover rates undermining recruitment efforts. Teachers' effectiveness and their likelihood of staying in teaching are strongly influenced by the quality of preparation…

As states reckon with racial enrollment and attainment gaps in higher education, some have made efforts to address them through their higher education funding. Two common approaches are outcomes-based funding (OBF) and Promise programs, as each can be designed with an explicit race equity lens. This report summarizes a two-year study examining the…

Head Start programs in many of the states with higher rates of children living in poverty have received less per-child funding allocations than programs in states with lower rates of children living in poverty for years. Further, the educators who teach these children are vastly underpaid, and their pay is also inequitable among states and…

In 2013, the California legislature approved the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) as a new way to fund local school districts. The new formula aimed to increase educational equity for low-income, English learners, homeless and foster youth students. The policy established a way to increase funding for school districts with higher percentages…

This 11th update of the Community College League of California's (CCLC) biennial Tenure and Retention Report includes late summer/early fall 2022 to July 31, 2024. This period witnessed perennial California CEO challenges: economic volatility, burdensome laws and regulations, dysfunctional boards of trustees, State legislative and policymaker…

High-quality early care and education (ECE) programs are associated with positive academic and social outcomes for participating children, and therefore policies intended to support ECE programs deserve critical analysis to identify, then eliminate, correctable disparities. The authors' research employs a critical policy analysis framework in the…

Public schools receive funding from three different government sources: local, state, and federal. Local and state governments contribute the majority of funding to support public school systems, while the federal government provides a small fraction (only about 8% on average). Even with recent infusions of federal funding related to the COVID-19…

Every two to three years since 2008, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has conducted a survey of sustainability professionals employed in higher education. These surveys aggregate information from sustainability staff and specialized positions such as recycling & waste staff and academic staff…

Each year, school systems and lead agencies plan for how to improve student learning in the coming year. This process involves reviewing student achievement and progress data, establishing priorities, aligning budgets to these priorities, and implementing plans with support. Ensuring students receive the supports they deserve will require ongoing…

After being sued for inequity and inadequacy in school funding, many states in the US have reformed their education aid formulas but have still faced many criticisms. Using Connecticut as an example, this paper shows how to design a more equitable and adequate aid formula with tools to win broad support from communities and lawmakers. It develops…

In this report, the authors propose and simulate a framework for a new foundation formula approach to distributing federal K-12 education aid. This proposal, with full funding and compliance, would provide every school district with the estimated revenues necessary to reach the goal of average national outcomes in mathematics and reading. The…

In the United States, financial incentives have been used by the U.S. Government to reward performance at colleges and universities since the 1960s. Various case-studies have documented that incentivization programs may not result in positive outcomes. The purpose of this qualitative, multiple case study was to identify two-year, public colleges'…

America's labor market presents a paradox. Although the unemployment rate is just 3.9%, there are more jobs open than people who can fill them. Nationwide, there are roughly 68 workers for every 100 open jobs. Many factors contribute to this workforce shortage, but one of the most significant is a growing skills gap -- millions of workers across…