This study examines how the federal government and states prepare to implement the No Child Left Behind Act. Researchers reviewed states' consolidated applications for federal grants; conducted telephone interviews with officials in 48 states, the District of Columbia, and 8 school districts; and reviewed relevant research. The study addresses…

This document comprises the 12 issues for 2001 of the "Child Support Report," which explores problems related to child support enforcement, reports on federal and state government child support enforcement initiatives, and summarizes research related to child support. Featured regularly are editorials and information on events of…

A survey was conducted on the use of lay advocates to investigate state reaction to a recent court decision in Delaware on the use of lay advocates and the availability of representation for parents of students with disabilities in due process hearings. The Delaware Supreme Court found in 1999 that lay advocates representing parents at due process…

This document contains the 11 issues of the newsletter "Rural Policy Matters" published in 2001. Issues examine recent educational research on small and rural schools; report on court litigation related to rural school finance, local advocacy efforts in support of rural schools, and the condition of rural school facilities; outline policy issues…

This paper focuses on the state of the law as it concerns adults with disabilities regarding educational issues. Sections 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 are addressed and legal issues are examined, including: (1) the definition of disability; (2) documentation of disability; (3) financial…

This publication documents a congressional hearing on the Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and Security Act of 1999, which focuses on these three major concerns: the United States (US) is the home of a large and growing number of undocumented agricultural workers; the current H-2A Program is administratively burdensome, does not work well for…

The Job Training Partnership Act's Out-of-School Youth program (OSY) was audited to determine whether participants' reported outcomes for positive terminations were accurate and fully documented and what impact program interventions had on participants' post-program earnings. Program services and outcomes were audited for 499 OSY participants at…

This booklet aims to help concerned citizens change laws and school funding systems to improve equity and adequacy for rural education programs. It will help readers gather the information they need, evaluate its meaning, put it in context, establish networks with others, and work with their legislatures and courts to solve the problems. Chapter 1…

This is a collected edition of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges adopted papers on technology-related issues. These six papers, written between 1995 and 2000, raise the issues which must be discussed at each college; they also provide suggestions and examples to consider. The most recent of the papers, "Guidelines on…

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) of 1997 was intended to increase the safety of children, promote adoption and other permanency options for children, and support fragile families. Although elements of ASFA were viewed as positive, child welfare administrators, practitioners, and researchers expressed concern that ASFA implementation could…

Every year, millions of high school graduates enter college. The cost of a four-year college education has risen over 600 percent since 1969. Students and their families seek ways to finance the rising costs of a college education, at times falling prey to scholarship and financial aid scams. To help students and their families, on November 5,…

Several years after the passage of NCLB, there are persistently low-performing schools in every state that face increasingly strong consequences for failing to improve student achievement sufficiently. In particular, schools that fail to make AYP for five consecutive years must engage in restructuring to improve student learning. Districts have…

In 2002, the Michigan State Board of Education asked the Department of Education to develop grade-by-grade "content expectations" in reading/English language arts and mathematics to provide guidance to local educators and parents and serve as the basis for annual assessments required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of…

This E.D. Tab focuses on degree completions in academic programs that have been deemed areas of national need by federal legislation. The analysis focuses on completions data from 1996-97 and 2001-02 and examines completions at institutions granting awards of associate's degrees and higher. In particular, it looks at the change in the total number…

Congress justified the recent reform of federal welfare policy in part by citing the increase in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) caseload since the late 1960s. The caseload, i.e., the number of families using AFDC, is determined by the number of families eligible to participate and by the proportion of these families who use the…