Problem: Priority health-risk behaviors contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among youth and adults. Population-based data on these behaviors at the national, state, and local levels can help monitor the effectiveness of public health interventions designed to protect and promote the health of youth nationwide. Reporting…

The purpose of this study was to explore the production, communication, interpretation and contestation of new physical education (PE) and physical activity (PA) policy initiatives introduced in Mississippi and Tennessee for the academic year 2006-2007. These states provide a relevant context to study such issues, since Mississippi has the highest…

State content standards are the backbone of the standards-based reform movement. Content standards provide teachers with a set of guidelines for what students are expected to know and be able to do, defining the intended curriculum. And although the current 50-state system of education gives each state the task of setting content standards, there…

This study examined three years of data obtained from the Academic Excellence Indicator System of the State of Texas regarding teacher turnover rate and teacher salary. Across all public school districts, teacher salary was consistently negatively related to teacher turnover; that is, where salary was lower, turnover rate was higher When data were…

(Purpose) The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between certain characteristics of US states and their budgeting systems for higher education (HE), and to derive implications for Japanese HE budgeting policy from the results. (Methodology) The US's State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) conducted a 30-item…

This article analyzes the findings from a three-state study of teacher induction policy. It looks within and across Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin to explore the landscape and experience of teacher induction. Although the orientation and conception of each state's policy is similar, the states represent three different structural approaches to…

While school-finance lawsuits have attracted significant attention in the legal community and generated numerous state-specific case studies, nationwide analyses of the effects of school-finance judgments (SFJs) have been relatively few. This small pool of studies has produced some common conclusions, namely, that such judgments reduce funding…

This study investigates what factors are associated with the likelihood of passing school facility construction bonds by local district election. It uses statewide data from Michigan, 1998-2006, to examine the outcome of 789 bond elections in terms of the following ten variables: amount of the bond request; district enrollment; district locale;…

In Texas, the members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) are elected in a partisan election. One of the duties of the State Board of Education is overseeing the writing of curriculum standards for the various content areas. A call went out to educators across the state, asking for volunteers to write the standards. Committees were formed for…

This article estimates the costs of school finance adequacy in each of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. by applying the recommendations from an evidence-based model to the student characteristics of each individual state. Using two different prices, (a) the national average teacher salaries adjusted by a comparable wage index and (b) individual…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act compelled states to design school accountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but centrally important question. This study presents evidence on whether NCLB has influenced student…

Background/Context: In September 2007, the Arizona State Board of Education adopted the Structured English Immersion (SEI) model proposed by the Arizona English Language Learner (ELL) Task Force.During the 2008-2009 academic year, it required all school districts to implement the SEI model.The SEI program, best known as the 4-hour English Language…

In 2009, Lumina Foundation officially adopted its Big Goal that 60 percent of Americans obtain a high-quality postsecondary degree or credential by 2025. That same year, Lumina began reporting on progress toward the Big Goal in a series of reports titled "A Stronger Nation through Higher Education". The core of the reports is Census data…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus package, appropriated $100 billion for education and included $3 billion for school improvement grants (SIGs) to help reform low-performing schools. This amount was in addition to the $546 million provided by the regular fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill for…

In 2010, alcohol was once again the substance of choice among American youth. In fact, a greater proportion of American young people use alcohol than use other drugs or tobacco, and this use of alcohol by youth under the legal drinking age of 21 has profound negative consequences not just for underage drinkers, but also for their families, their…