Educational choice programs--defined broadly as programs that provide parents financial aid to opt their children out of the traditional public school system--have been a topic of significant public discussion and debate in recent months. Despite the increasing news coverage, however, polls show that most Americans are unfamiliar with educational…

School districts implement a variety of initiatives that too often fall short. This case study investigated how one public school district in southeastern Michigan implemented interest based-bargaining (IBB). The study also sought to understand the factors that influenced the decision-making process and what was considered when making…

The State Family Outcomes Measurement System Framework (S-FOMS) is a framework originally developed by the Early Childhood Outcomes Center that identifies seven key components of a high-quality family outcomes measurement system at the state level. The seven components are: (1) Purpose; (2) Data collection and transmission; (3) Analysis; (4)…

The State University System (SUS) of Florida is committed to excellence in teaching, research and public service--the traditional mission of universities. This is achieved through a coordinated system of institutions, each having a distinct mission and each dedicated to meeting the needs of a diverse state and nation. This past year, the System…

On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay. These indicators involved group performance for teachers based on campus second grade comparative growth in mathematics and reading…

On January 12, 2006, the Houston Independent School District (HISD) Board of Education approved a teacher performance-pay program awarding teachers financial incentives based on three indicators of performance pay, using value-added methodology. For 2015-2016, HISD did not renew its contract with SAS EVAAS®. The amended model replaced EVAAS® with…

The Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins IV) is the principal source of federal funding to states for the improvement of secondary and postsecondary career and technical education programs. States are provided with funds for distribution to local educational agencies (LEAs) and postsecondary institutions for…

In 2006, following a 30-year trend among the US states to remove the property tax from the revenue for public schools, the South Carolina General Assembly enacted Act 388 which replaced the property tax with a one-cent sales tax. The law decreased the budget capacity of school districts thus impacting educational equity and adequacy. This paper…

The globalization of science and scholarship and the worldwide massification of post-secondary/tertiary education is creating an atmosphere that is at once competitive between and collaborative among colleges and universities. Because of the importance of these institutions to the shared economic futures of individuals and countries, there are…

In this article, the authors provide a methodological critique of the current standard of value-added modeling forwarded in educational policy contexts as a means of measuring teacher effectiveness. Conventional value-added estimates of teacher quality are attempts to determine to what degree a teacher would theoretically contribute, on average,…

As research continues to underscore the positive impact high-quality early childhood programs have on young children, numerous states have implemented quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) to measure and improve the services young children receive across a wide range of early learning settings. These state systems range from two to five…

The hidden curriculum is generally understood as the process by which daily exposure to school expectations and routines transmits norms and values of the dominant society to students. In the present, through the regimentation of thought, control of bodies and movement, and proliferation of punishment, contemporary accountability and testing…

There are at least four key places where the Common Core intersects with current efforts to improve education in the United States--testing, professional development, expectations, and accountability. Understanding them can help educators, parents, and policymakers maximize the chance that the Common Core is helpful to these efforts and, perhaps…

This article analyzes the ideology of accountability in contemporary education within the context of neoliberalism and its reconstruction of social relationships on the basis of the market, competition and efficiency. Drawing on contemporary critical philosophical accounts, it argues that the scholarship on education and accountability has not…

In contemporary education policy, simplified technical accounts of policy problems and solutions are being produced with the use of numeric calculations. These calculations are seen as clear and unbiased, capable of revealing "what works" and identifying "best practices." In this piece, the authors use resources from the…