Educators are becoming more aware of the limitations of testing that simply measures student achievement at a single point in time, such as benchmark tests, locally constructed formative tests, conventional standardized tests, and state assessments used to determine adequate yearly progress under No Child Left Behind. Not surprisingly, school…

Over the last thirty years, the idea of sustainable development has come to be seen in policy circles across the globe as a necessary and urgent response to a range of social and environmental issues that threaten both the integrity of the biosphere, and human wellbeing. Increasingly, education, and particularly higher education, is seen to have a…

Future historians may well find as much continuity as change in government policies towards higher education between the mid-1980s and the mid-2000s. One exception, however, is likely to be widening participation (WP), which only appeared on the policy agenda after 1997. Moreover, this commitment has been sustained. In this brief survey, the…

This chapter describes how Dickinson College, guided by a strategic plan, addressed its net tuition revenue problem through effective decision support, marketing and branding approaches, and pricing and financial aid strategies. The college's strategic plan guides allocation of resources toward fulfilling the college's purpose of providing an…

In the landscape of higher education, access is central to the community college. An essential element of the mission of community colleges is to provide access to a high-quality higher education to the residents of the county or region in which the colleges reside. In areas that also are served by four-year colleges, a community college can…

Democratic trends paint a seemingly bleak picture for small schools. Declining school enrollments and school closures have led to an unprecedented trend towards school closures and amalgamation of schools across Canada. Since student enrollment is the most common basis for funding formulas in Canada, small schools typically receive a smaller…

A year and a half ago, President Bush proposed creating a new federal mathematics effort that would offer millions of dollars in grants to school districts to adopt proven strategies for improving classroom instruction in that subject. Administration officials had pictured the new program, called Math Now, as being modeled on Reading First, the $1…

In this article, the author discusses the Democratic victories that have raised expectations on college campuses in part because a number of the gubernatorial candidates, including Deval L. Patrick, emphasized themes of access and affordability in their campaigns. Mr. Patrick, the governor-elect of Massachusetts, traveled to the University of…

A few days before President Bush officially released his 2008 budget, administration officials announced that it would contain a historic increase in the maximum Pell Grant. The increase in Pell Grants would be paid for by cutting subsidies for student loans, a step that experts predicted could induce lenders to offer fewer benefits to borrowers.…

Under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, school districts that receive federal Title 1 education funds and have a "school in need of improvement--year two" must implement supplemental educational services (SES). Such districts must allocate a portion of their Title 1 funds to free tutoring for low-income students. Providers may be…

In "Resourceful Leadership", Elizabeth A. City examines decisions about the use of three key resources--time, money, and staff--and how tradeoffs among them are integrated into school leaders' improvement strategies. She undertakes a detailed study of two small urban high schools in their first year of conversion from a large, comprehensive high…

The passage of the Kentucky Educational Reform Act (KERA) in 1990 had a dramatic impact on the funding of primary and secondary education in the state. The amount of money spent on education increased significantly with the passage of KERA with districts in rural areas of the state experiencing the largest growth in spending (Hoyt, 1999). This has…

This report is the final result of a six-year study of America's school finance system, including more than 30 separate studies at a cost of $6 million and involving an interdisciplinary team of more than 40 scholars including many of the country's best known economists, policy analysts, lawyers, and specialists in school finance, instruction,…

"Kids' Share 2008," a second annual report, looks comprehensively at trends in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. This report updates the previous year's report, "Kids' Share 2007," adding in actual (rather than projected) budget numbers for 2007 and projections of spending within the children's budget against other federal…

Although the transition from high school to college is a predictable rite of passage for students in their late teens and early twenties, much about the nature of these students and their environments is changing. In this chapter, the author focuses on four of the many new issues that have an effect on the transition experience of today's…