Nearly every high-priority item in national, federal, state, and local discussions about education--and policy proposals across the political spectrum--requires high-quality longitudinal data to inform its design, implementation, and evaluation. This factsheet shares Data Quality Campaign's (DQC's) analysis of what "Data for Action 2011:…

This Report to Congress is required by Section 658L of the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act (CCDBG) as amended. The report provides information about the role of the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) in improving access to high-quality child care in states, territories, and tribes. The data and analysis contained in this report are…

"Kids' Share 2011: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2010," a fifth annual report, looks comprehensively at trends over the past 50 years in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Key findings suggest that the size and composition of expenditures on children have changed considerably, but children have not…

TRIO programs exist for students who need guidance through the academic systems that exist. TRIO programs began in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson signed the Educational Opportunity Act into law (McElroy and Armesto, 1998). This started the TRIO programs to help disadvantaged students enroll and complete college. TRIO programs, including Talent Search…

This article discusses the kinds of instructional activities that young children need to develop basic language and literacy skills based on recent research and program evaluations. This includes approaches to develop alphabetic understanding, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and oral language. Activities and materials from the Pre-kindergarten…

In this article the authors accept as a given the National Education Technology Plan's vision of a transformed education system powered by technology such that learners receive personalized and engaging learning experiences, and where assessment, teaching, infrastructure, and productivity are redefined. The article analyzes this vision of a…

This paper provides information about North Carolina End-of-Course Exams. The North Carolina End-of-Course Assessments were developed for two purposes: (1) To provide accurate measurement of individual student knowledge and skills specified in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study; and (2) To provide accurate measurement of the knowledge and…

California school districts are being expected to "do more with less." They face critical and competing pressures to improve academic achievement while remaining fiscally solvent in a time of increasing budgetary pressures. This report examines the financial circumstances of California's school districts and the actions they have been…

Some states are developing alternate assessments based on modified achievement standards (AA-MAS) to measure the academic achievement of some students with disabilities (Albus, Lazarus, Thurlow, & Cormier, 2009; Lazarus, Thurlow, Christensen, & Cormier, 2007). These assessments measure the same content as the general assessment for a given…

In early 2009, Congress directed the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to develop a National Broadband Plan to ensure every American has "access to broadband capability." Congress also required that this plan include a detailed strategy for achieving affordability and maximizing use of broadband to advance "consumer welfare, civic…

This brief, based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau, examines how rural families use four of the major federal child nutrition programs. It finds that 29 percent of rural families with children participate but that there are barriers to these nutrition programs, such as the lack of public transportation and high operating costs for rural schools…

Practitioners in informal science settings--museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, libraries, aquariums, zoos, and botanical gardens--are interested in finding out what learning looks like, how to measure it, and what they can do to ensure that people of all ages, from different backgrounds and cultures,…

Section 9401 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended, authorizes the Secretary of Education to grant waivers of ESEA requirements to state educational agencies (SEAs), local education agencies (LEAs), Indian tribes, and schools in order to assist them in increasing the quality of instruction for students and…

After a long decline, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of older men in the United States leveled off in the 1980s, and began to increase in the late 1990s. We examine how changes in Social Security rules affected these trends. We attribute only a small portion of the decline from the 1960s-80s to the increasing generosity of Social…

Plans to improve literacy instruction (N = 1,504) developed by teachers and early literacy experts in coaching sessions (N = 280) conducted in 31 Head Start classrooms were examined to describe a general trajectory of coaching with regard to content coverage, pedagogical emphasis (instructional material, teaching behavior), and progression (new,…