This document provides a summary of and recommendations from the larger report, "Deeper in Debt: Women and Student Loans" (ED580345). Over the course of the past few decades student loans have become an increasingly common means of paying for a college education. Most students who complete a college program now take on student loans, and…

In recent years, federal education programs and policies have increasingly focused on teacher quality as a means for closing achievement gaps, in part by directing states to measure teacher qualifications and performance and to promote equitable access to qualified and effective teachers among schools within a district. This report provides a…

The South was the central focus of the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. The landmark ruling held that laws mandating segregation in the school systems of the eleven states of the Old Confederacy, along with D.C. and six other states, violated the U.S. Constitution. Intense opposition met the…

Public spending on children by federal, state, and local governments is an investment in the nation's future because it supports children's healthy development, helping them fulfill their potential. To help interested stakeholders assess the government's investment in children, this 11th edition of the annual "Kids' Share" report…

When the 16 Race to the Top-District (RTT-D) victors were announced in December 2012, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan proclaimed, "Now these winners can empower their school leaders to pursue innovative ideas where they have the greatest impact: the classroom." He backed up his statement with nearly $400 million in awards to be…

The federal child-care subsidy program represents one of the government's largest investments in early care and education. Using data from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, this study examines associations, among subsidy-eligible families, between child-care subsidy receipt when children are 4 years old…

The purpose of this exploratory mixed methods study was to investigate how teacher beliefs were related to technology integration practices. We were interested in how and to what extent teachers' (a) beliefs about the nature of knowledge and learning, (b) beliefs about effective ways of teaching, and (c) technology integration practices were…

Well before President Barack Obama vaulted early childhood learning to the top of the education agenda in his recent State of the Union address, states were taking steps to bolster their own preschool programs. More than a dozen states--including some, such as Hawaii and Mississippi, that have had no state-financed preschool programs in the…

Background: There has been a significant increase in the prevalence of autism in the USA in the past few decades. The purpose of this study was to provide recent estimates of psychotropic drug use and costs among individuals with autism enrolled in the Medicaid programme. Method: A cross-sectional analysis of 2007 Mississippi (MS) Medicaid…

Afterschool programs have been operating for decades in communities across the country, and federal investment in afterschool has increased dramatically since the mid-1990s. However, even more investment in the field of afterschool, which includes before-school, afterschool and summer learning programs, is needed to keep up with the growing…

This report responds to the legislative requirement of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (P.L.110-246) to assess the effectiveness of State and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Direct certification is a process conducted by the States and by local…

This report responds to the requirement of Public Law 110-246 to assess the effectiveness of State and local efforts to directly certify children for free school meals. Direct certification is a process conducted by the States and by local educational agencies (LEAs) to certify eligible children for free meals without the need for household…

The purpose of this report is to provide insight into how state departments are implementing legislative requirements for educator evaluation, particularly the specific circumstances states encounter around arts education. Spotlights on Delaware, a first-round recipient of Race to the Top funding, and Colorado and Arizona, third-round recipients,…

The modern university has been called, "a series of separate schools and departments held together by a central heating system," and, in a play on this line, "a series of individual faculty entrepreneurs held together by a common grievance over parking." Whether parking, heating, or, more probable today, WiFi, these…

Policy makers' attempts to improve low-achieving schools through reform measures are not new to the 21st century. Research asserts that this policy churn has done little, if anything, to change student achievement levels. Based on the research, I assert that policy reforms such as teacher evaluations and test-based assessment, and school…