This white paper presents a case history of the Spelman College endowment and how good financial management and alternative strategies for the growth of the endowment has made Spelman's one of the largest among U.S. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). How has Spelman College been able to grow its endowment funds to this level? A…

With heightened expectations and greater funding as backdrop, one would expect elected officials and educators to ensure that America's substantial investment in public education is used effectively to accomplish its ambitious new goals. Conventional modes of funding school improvement, however, such as across-the-board salary increases,…

School districts across the country are redesigning their portfolios of high schools to include more small high schools. Over the past three years Education Resource Strategies (ERS), with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, partnered with both schools and districts to understand spending in small high schools and document how…

Transforming an entire district from one that is satisfied with being academically good enough into one keenly focused on improved student performance requires overhaul that reaches from end to end, from building to building, from bottom to top. Leaders in Birdville Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas, learned that applying five…

A recent major trend in distance education is the emergence of K-12 virtual schools. This evaluative case study looked at the issues encountered and lessons learned by one school district during the first year of a virtual high school program. The purpose of the evaluation was to examine what happened when the school district initiated its virtual…

The balanced development of compulsory education, with a focus on the goal of educational equality, is both a matter of policy orientation and a practical educational issue. At present, people are mostly concerned with the unbalanced state of development of compulsory education, its causes, and issues regarding its administration. Various modes of…

Due to an increasing trend among states to cut higher education funds, many universities are relying more on private donations and federal funding to keep programs afloat. Scholarship productivity in general has become an integral factor in terms of universities granting tenure to faculty, allocating resources, and supporting program goals due to…

This book presents the results and implications of a major new national study exploring the effects of institutional racial composition on African American students' development and their educational outcomes, taking into account individuals' background characteristics, their perceptions of the institutional environment, and their experiences in…

In prominent Hollywood movies and even in some research studies, New York City (NYC) charter schools have been held up as unusually successful. This research brief presents a new study that analyzes the resources available to those charter schools, and it also looks at their performance on state standardized tests. The study reaches some…

The Title II-D grant program, "Enhancing Education Through Technology," (EETT) provides financial assistance to higher poverty school districts that have the greatest need for technology support or have been identified as being in need of improvement. In 2009, the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) provided an additional $650…

This fact sheet summarizes data gathered in the 2011 survey of National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant recipients. Conducted by EvaluATE, the evaluation resource center for the ATE program located at The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, this was the twelfth annual survey of ATE projects and…

This study was conducted to examine instructional strategies and resource allocation in successful schools. The study was based on analysis of six effective Southern California elementary schools. All the analyzed schools were Title I, non-charter public schools that had demonstrated consistent student achievement, had narrowed the achievement gap…

Community colleges across the nation appear to be facing a "perfect storm" during which surging enrollments, tepid state funding, and strong accountability forces are colliding to severely threaten access to and completion of postsecondary education and credentials by lower-skilled and low-income students. In the last few years, record enrollments…

Section 9401 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended, authorizes the Secretary of Education to grant waivers of ESEA requirements to state educational agencies (SEAs), local education agencies (LEAs), Indian tribes, and schools in order to assist them in increasing the quality of instruction for students and…

To date, less than ten percent of secondary schools in Kenya offer computer studies as a subject in the curriculum despite its perceived role in the nation's socio-economic development. The few schools that have an Information Communication Technology (ICT) programme limit the number of candidates who take up the subject, considering it a…