Budgetary and fiscal data from 11 school districts of varying wealth in New Jersey suggest that, in the first year of the state's Quality Education Act, the law has only modestly increased fiscal equality, with only minor cuts in funding in wealthy districts and some program improvement in poorer ones. (SLD)

Results of professional development programs for elementary through secondary teachers are described, with attention to improving practices for teaching students with learning disabilities and behavior disorders in general education. Four professional development programs explored effective formats and content, and three subsequent programs…

Provides an overview of the major federal and state health care programs serving children and pregnant women, including (1) Medicaid; (2) the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant Program; (3) the Community and Migrant Health Center Program; and (4) the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children. (SLD)

The education finance bill recently passed by the federal government has changed the funding of many programs within the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Budget lines that gained or lost are traced, with some explanation of the changes. Prospects for the 1993 federal education research budget are reviewed. (SLD)

Development of state leadership in implementing the quality mandate of Chapter 1 supplementary education programs is traced up to the 1988 Hawkins Stafford Act, which added procedural and accountability requirements. Challenges that states now face in the program improvement processes are described. (SLD)

Examined interventions and strategies used by Chapter 1 Program Improvement (PI) schools to improve academic program and Chapter 1 services. Site visits to 15 California elementary and middle schools show that schools engaged in change have common elements: strong leadership, quality core curriculum, school autonomy, district support, and parent…

A recent study by the Alliance for Higher Education Competitiveness, "Achieving Success in Internet-Supported Learning in Higher Education: Case Studies Illuminate Success Factors, Challenges, and Future Directions," pulled from the experiences of 21 institutions across all Carnegie classifications to provide insights into best practices for…

In this article, the author discusses small learning communities (SLCs), a term that is used to refer to the practice of organizing secondary schools into smaller units. Features of SLCs include small structure, curricular specialization and choice, a focus on the learner and learning, and, in particular, the active and collaborative nature of…

Transformation of public education requires the reawakening of the sleeping giant in the room: the learners. Students, teachers, and principals must develop a learner-centric, standards-driven school. "Reawakening the Learner" is a guide to creating just such an environment. Continua describe the journey of teachers, teacher leaders, and…

Technological progress has consistently driven remarkable advances in the U.S. economy, yet K-12 education sees little technological change compared to other sectors, even as U.S. K-12 students increasingly lag behind students in other nations. This proposal considers how we can take a signature American strength--innovation--and apply it to K-12…

It started with a dream: to create a national best practices teaching and learning center that would not only provide the best available care and education to children ages 0 to 5 years old, but would also serve as a model for adult learners and like-minded entities and individuals in the early education arena. Committed to elevating the quality…

The nation is in an era of policy reform aimed at improving the productivity and effectiveness of higher education. Major philanthropies and policy groups have converged around variations of the ambitious college completion goals announced by President Obama at the beginning of his administration. But at the same time, many state governments,…

The 12 winners of the federal Race to the Top competition have experienced near-universal challenges in turning their sweeping, multifaceted proposals into reality, among them a limited state capacity to execute fast, dramatic change and deeply rooted teacher-evaluation systems that have proved hard to transform. Reports unveiled by the U.S.…

In the aftermath of the devastating January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, international humanitarian groups and volunteers poured into the country, bolstering what was already one of the world's hot spots for nongovernmental organizations. But the magnitude of the disaster--an estimated 300,000 were killed and one million left homeless out of a…

This study investigated a Tier 2 intervention in the context of a response-to-intervention (RTI) model for 123 fourth-grade students identified as having a high probability of reading failure. A randomized control trial was used to evaluate the effects of a 24-session multicomponent supplemental intervention targeting fluency and expository…