An increased amount of energy and effort has been focused on higher education and degree attainment in the United States. President Obama has recently tied the Pell grants into the discussion as a central point in his proposed system of higher education accountability. However, the influence of the Pell grant on degree production has not been…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) allocated $11 billion per year for 2009 and 2010 for qualified school construction bonds (QSCBs) for America's schools. From a historical perspective, this program is a broad transformation of the federal role in school facility funding. This study examined factors associated with federal…

The Great Recession's effect on state school finance systems was unlike previous downturns in the early 1990s and early 2000s in that it: a) involved a greater loss of taxable income in many states, thus greater loss to state general fund revenues, b) also involved a substantial collapse of housing markets and related reduction or at least…

Students with a zero expected family contribution (EFC) are those with the greatest financial need and least ability to pay for college and now make up more than one in three American undergraduate students. Yet little is known about the year-to-year financial aid volatility of these students, or whether it varies by how the zero EFC was…

This report summarizes Austin Independent School District's federal NCLB Title I compliance and service data from the 2013-2014 school year. More than $23 million was spent to serve more than 45,000 students. State academic test results showed that students at Title I schools had lower passing rates than students at non-Title I schools.

Amidst deep cuts to public spending, the UK Coalition government announced in 2010 that it would be substantially reducing its subsidy of social science within higher education. As part of the same deficit reduction strategy, the government is cutting funding to local authorities, disproportionately hitting urban councils in the most deprived…

This mixed-method multiple case study investigated nine elementary schools. Six "odds-beating schools," which serve relatively high numbers of economically disadvantaged children, achieved higher than predicted performance on state assessments when compared with three typically performing schools. The overarching research question…

Parents, educators, advocates, and state policymakers alike want excellence in teaching and learning every day for every educator and student. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) gives states renewed authority as well as leverage to make this vision a reality. The role of state boards of education in this process cannot be underestimated. State…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around struggling schools, with federal school improvement money required to fund evidence-based policies. Most research on turnarounds has focused on individual schools, whereas studies of district-wide turnarounds have come from relatively exceptional settings and…

The history of family and consumer sciences (FCS) and the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) is discussed with an emphasis on the critical importance of the human dimension. EFNEP's focus on people, education for change, accountability, strategic partnerships, and public value are highlighted as an example and model for…

Special education, a discipline that aims to provide specialized instruction to meet the unique needs of each child with a disability, has turned 40 years old in the United States. Ever since the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142) in 1975, every state has been directed to provide a free and appropriate…

Legislation leading to the mandating of accountability testing in schools was chronicled between the publication of "A Nation at Risk" (1983) to the conclusion of No Child Left Behind (2016). Involvement in education by the federal government increased throughout the educational legislation during this time period. The Omnibus Trade and…

This study explores the relationship between state and federal funding policies and the ability of minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to support low-income and minority students. The way US public higher education is financed has changed dramatically since the Great Recession. State appropriations to institutions have declined (SHEEO, 2017),…

Student Debt and the Class of 2016 is the Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS') twelfth annual report on the student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges, documenting the rise in student loan debt and variation among states as well as colleges. State averages for debt at graduation ranged from a low of $20,000 (Utah)…

Today education and training beyond high school are more essential to our success as individuals and as a nation than ever before. Americans have responded to these new realities, and education beyond high school is now the norm in the US. These trends make the federal Higher Education Act (HEA), which governs federal student aid programs and…