Under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), every school is subject to the controversial mandates for annual test score gains contained in the federal law. The law represents a profound change in the relationship between the federal government and state and local education agencies regarding who controls education and has direct implications for…

The No Child Left Behind Act has had a pervasive effect on American education in its drive to bring about improvement in student achievement through assessment and accountability. In its standards-based approach to reform, measurement by standardized tests is everything. In this article, the author discusses the issue of private school…

States' policy approaches to accountability tend to divide between a primary emphasis on input guarantees and a primary emphasis on performance guarantees. In the midst of keen controversies about the impact of high-stakes testing under the No Child Left Behind Act, this article examines separate and joint effects of input-guarantee versus…

Eleven elementary schools were selected randomly from a typical medium sized city of Japan. Parents of pupils who were attending the schools were surveyed. A small proportion of agreement with, "The reality of lives of persons with intellectual disability (ID) should be told more widely to the public" was interpreted as a typical…

Concerns have been raised about the Department of Education's (Education) role in overseeing the lenders and schools that participate in the largest of the federal government's student loan programs, the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). GAO was asked to analyze Education's use of its oversight, guidance, and enforcement authorities…

The purpose of this booklet is to introduce parents of students with disabilities to the "big ideas" contained in school improvement efforts under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and to provide them with the information they need to help ensure that their children…

Because federal law offers little guidance for continually-failing schools, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) conducted a study from August 2006 to January 2007 in Michigan to explore questions of what happens after restructuring, particularly to schools that continue to fail to meet achievement targets. Because it had an accountability system…

This study examines the impact of 2 professional learning community (PLC) classroom practices on the English Language Arts achievement of California's most at-risk subgroups between selected higher- and lower-performing elementary schools in a southern California school district. The conclusions from this study agree with the body of research,…

This publication provides a closer look at data reported annually by South Carolina's public institutions of higher education as part of institutional effectiveness reporting and as part of the process of performance funding. Prior to the January 2000 edition, this document was entitled "Minding Our P's and Q's: Indications of Productivity…

This article analyzes CEE's and NCTE's current positions related to political action and highlights the increasing need for public intellectual and political activism as an integral part of organizational policy. Using Lakoff's (2005) concept of cognitive/linguistic framing in political discourse along with Kuchapski's (2002) characterizations of…

A study reviewed the Adult Education Act's (AEA's) largest program--the State Grant Program, its coordination with federal employment training programs, and the extent to which the program ensured accountability for program quality and results. The study relied on national data in conducting its review and performed more detailed work in three…

This paper provides information about the development of a successful quality-assurance process in the New South Wales, Australia, school system. In 1992 the New South Wales (NSW) government announced its commitment to a program of quality-assurance reviews of schools. During that year, approximately 100 meetings were held with principals, school…

In 1994, the New York State Office of the Comptroller performed an audit of Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and Supplemental Tuition Assistance Program (STAP) awards at Katharine Gibbs School, a two-year secretarial and business education institution. TAP, the largest student grant and scholarship program administered by the Higher Education…

This publication deals with two broad issues: (1) selection, equality, and reproduction of social hierarchies in higher education, and (2) development policies and the assessment of their effect on higher education. It contains the following 10 papers: "Ambitious Goals--Small Changes? On the Structure of Student Population in Finland in the…

This paper offers reflections on the role of the agricultural university in developing nations by analyzing in turn the factors that contribute to stagnation of these universities. It first takes up the policy conditions that govern the broad outlines of the agricultural university mandate such as the university's relationship with the ministry of…