The triple threat of cutbacks in state and federal funding to higher education, soaring college tuition, and shifting policy priorities for student aid leaves more Hispanic and other minority students behind. This stops them on the road to success and negatively impacts the nation's educated work force, for Hispanics are the youngest, largest…

This paper seeks to shift debate from the question of whether charter schools are serving their "fair share" of students with disabilities to the more fruitful question of how finance and choice policies influence special education enrollment rates in charter schools. A school's incentive to enroll a student with disabilities depends on…

This article reports the aggressive outreach efforts exerted by various schools in fighting truancy among its students. These actions were driven in part by the No Child Left Behind Act, which required schools and districts to improve their students' academic performance or face sanctions. According to educators, ensuring that students show up for…

"The 2009 Legislative Briefing" is a topical summary of actions during the 2009 legislative sessions that affect education in the 16 SREB states. Topics include: state budgets and the economy; tax and revenue; teacher and faculty pay raises; retirement systems; issues affecting teachers and education leaders; health and safety;…

Flexibility is a lever for change that occupies an increasingly prominent place in federal strategies for educational improvement. Flexibility assumes that local actors are in the best position to identify the most serious problems facing schools and students and to determine how to solve them. Consequently, these actors should be given greater…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) focused national attention on improving schools so that all students reach academic proficiency by 2014. In the 2006-2007 school year, about 4,500 of the 54,000 Title I schools failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for 4 or more years. Schools that miss AYP for 4 years are identified for…

Voters in the State of Michigan reformed K-12 school financing significantly in 1994. The reform largely removed local government from playing a role in the determination of school finance and lodged this authority mainly with state government. In this article we examine the long-term impacts of the reform legislation. We find that although the…

The biennial report to Congress on the implementation of the Title III state formula grant program provides a snapshot of the status of the U.S. Department of Education's efforts to hold states accountable for ensuring that all limited English proficient (LEP) students attain English language proficiency (ELP) and are achieving in the content…

Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid are both "need-based" federal programs intended to benefit certain categories of individuals who are legal residents of the United States--primarily those 65 or older, those who are blind or those with disabilities--who have minimal income and financial resources. However, an individual's…

To help inform policymakers and the public about the progress of education in the United States, Congress has mandated that the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produce an annual report, "The Condition of Education." This year's report presents 42 indicators on important topics and trends in U.S. education. These…

This article explores the historical foundations of the South Carolina Digital Library, a collaborative statewide program that ties together academic special collections and archives, public libraries, state government archives, and other cultural resource institutions in an effort to provide the state with a comprehensive database of online…

The authors provide an overview of the Cooperative Extension System and its program evaluation challenges. Part of the historic land-grant system, Extension exists in all states and territories of the United States and is funded through federal, state, and local (usually county) appropriations, as well as competitive grants and other sources.…

This study focuses on flexibility provisions in the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) provision of NCLB. Specifically, it addresses REAP Flex, a program that allows rural districts additional control over how to spend portions of their federal funding. REAP Flex is part of a series of NCLB flexibility initiatives aimed at rural schools.…

How government spends money, and who benefits, reveals the priorities. How, then, do children fare in the competition for public resources? While families have long been the primary caregivers of children, all levels of government--local, state, and federal--invest in the growth and development of children, whether through education, family…

This collection of case studies of eight states--California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, New York, Virginia, Wyoming--documents a 1981-82 investigation of federal and state administrative interactions across a select sample of federal education programs. To represent a wide spectrum of political, economic, and institutional…