The Department of Education (Education) awarded about $6 billion in discretionary grants during fiscal year 2023, with the largest proportion of grant programs administered by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE). These grants are awarded competitively to recipients such as states and school districts. Education sometimes…

This guidance is intended to clarify that the Head Start Program Performance Standards (HSPPS) in 45 C.F.R. Part 1302 Subpart C--Education and Child Development Program Services are required for preschool programs supported with funds under Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA); and provide…

During the 118th Congress, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce marked up and ordered reported the College Cost Reduction Act (CCRA; H.R. 6951). Most of the bill's provisions would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA; P.L. 89-329, as amended), though it is not a comprehensive reauthorization of the HEA. Nevertheless, the bill…

We analyzed the proposed spending data for the American Recovery Plan's Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief III (ESSER III) fund from the spring of 2021 of nearly 3,000 traditional public-school districts in the United States to (1) identify trends in the strategies adopted and (2) to test whether spending strategies were observably…

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) entitles students with disabilities to a free appropriate public education. Students with disabilities often require additional support to enable them to achieve academic and functional goals relative to their nondisabled peers. These legally protected supports and services all add up…

This brief provides findings from the full report, "California School Districts and the Emergency Connectivity Fund," which examines the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) program's history to determine which school districts applied for funding, what kinds of needs their students and constituent communities were facing at the time, and…

Funding public higher education has long been a shared responsibility between state, local, and federal governments and students and their families (Laderman et al., 2023). While state and local governments fund public institutions directly, the federal government primarily funds higher education through portable student aid, including federal…

Oregon Revised Statute (ORS) 327.016 directs the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to prepare and publish by June 30 of each year an annual report related to the State School Fund moneys received for English language learner programs and student outcomes. The Annual Reports for English Learners (ELs) in Oregon for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school…

There are more than 43,500 juvenile offenders in residential placement across the country. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's (OJJDP's) reentry programs help ensure that youth have the tools to become productive, law-abiding members of society upon their return. OJJDP's Second Chance Act programs provide specialized…

This paper examines the financial resources allocated to Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in the United States. Our analyses demonstrate that CSI schools do receive additional funding and spend more than comparable non-CSI schools. However, we question whether the magnitude of this…

The flexibility federal block grants provide recipients poses challenges for evaluation. These challenges include aggregating data on wide-ranging activities grant recipients implement and the outcomes they achieve. In 2014, we began designing an evaluation to address the challenges of assessing outcomes and to improve outcome accountability for…

Decades of research has suggested that completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) can be a complex, difficult process for postsecondary students and their support networks. However, no extant research has informed federal student aid practitioners and researchers as to what federal student aid jargon terms institutions of…

Achieving prosperity for all Americans could not be more urgent. Although the United States remains the most prosperous nation on earth, millions of citizens are losing faith in the American dream of upward mobility, and in American-style capitalism itself. This crisis of confidence has widened the divide afflicting American politics and cries out…

The American Rescue Plan provides nearly $1.9 trillion in stimulus funds to states with an astounding $123 billion allocated to the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund for safe school re-openings and recovering learning loss. State and local education agencies have enormous responsibility to ensure this money makes a…

The purpose of this flash report is to share with the U.S. Department of Education (Department) observations made by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) concerning grantees and subgrantees inconsistently reporting audit data on Department subprograms, or unique components of a program, to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC), the designated…