Despite constraints on federal resources and authority in education policy, the federal government has a pivotal role to play in identifying a compelling, high-impact focal point that aligns policy priorities at the federal, state, and local levels. The federal government could play a critical role in expanding students' access to excellent…

The research is conclusive: Providing a high-quality early childhood education is crucial if we are to reach our state and national goals of educational equity and excellence, preparing children for college and career. The federal government, states throughout the country, and the courts are increasingly recognizing this reality. This report…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss how funding systems influence higher education institutions and their strategies and core tasks. Design/methodology/approach: Taking the results of a comparative study between Denmark, Norway and Portugal as a point of departure, the paper identifies and analyses the main features of these state…

For 70 years, the Union City School District used a line-item budget system, a top down approach that was regarded by many as "deaf, dumb, and blind." This antiquated central administration process gave school leaders and staff little, if any, input into the distribution of resources for their schools, resulting in a redundancy of allocations,…

This article examines the first regional governance reform in public education, created in the Omaha, Nebraska metropolitan area in 2007. The legislation creating this regional reform, which is called the Learning Community, established a regional governing body, the Learning Community Coordinating Council, consisting of an elected 21-member…

Driven by economic and educational imperatives, public policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropic and advocacy groups are mobilizing aggressive national and state campaigns to bolster college completion. Campaigns to improve student success are particularly concerned about the performance of the nation's community colleges. In…

Driven by economic and educational imperatives, public policymakers, higher education leaders, and philanthropic and advocacy groups are mobilizing aggressive national and state campaigns to bolster college completion. Campaigns to improve student success are particularly concerned about the performance of the nation's community colleges. In…

The passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the economic stimulus package, provided an extra $3 billion for school improvement grants (SIGs) under section 1003(g) of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Along with this funding increase, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance…

At no time in recent history has the importance of adult education been greater and the funding more threatened. Despite the fact that as many as 93 million adults in the U.S. may need basic skills services to improve their economic prospects, funding for these services is stagnating at the federal level and being slashed in statehouses and state…

The world of virtual schooling is experiencing a host of major policy shifts that are opening doors for its expansion, but at the same time holding it up to greater scrutiny. This special report, the first in a three-part 2012-2013 series on virtual education, examines how state policymakers, educators, and schools are rethinking and changing the…

In 1997, the Buckeye State embraced a new approach to public-education delivery, launching a pilot program of community (charter) schools. Since then, the state's community schools sector has grown tremendously. During the 2013-14 school year, 390 schools served approximately 124,000 students--seven percent of students statewide. Despite its…

Governor Sam Brownback has recommended the Kansas Legislature phase-in funding for full day kindergarten programs over the next five years. This proposal has also been adopted by the Kansas State Board of Education. Currently, all kindergarteners are counted as a half-time (0.5) student for funding purposes. About 87 percent of Kansas…

In recent decades, many calls for transformative change in American schooling have advocated school choice. Yet these calls themselves have too often accepted the orthodoxies of the nineteenth-century schoolhouse. In the new book "Customized Schooling: Beyond Whole-School Reform" (Harvard Education Press, 2011), the authors worked with…

The New Mexico Public Schools Facilities Authority (NM-PSFA) is a relatively small state agency (50 staff members) that manages the allocation of funding for public school facilities in the state while assisting school districts and state-chartered charter schools in facility planning, construction, and maintenance. Like the majority of other…

The measure of district wealth used by a state is a critical factor in reducing the potential extremes in available resources that may occur across districts. To be effective, the state definition of wealth should correlate closely with the local tax structure that is available to school districts to raise local revenues. Conversely, if wealth is…