In the United States, as public demands for quality teachers have escalated, there has been a corresponding increase in national policy efforts to tie the standards of student success to teacher preparation, licensing, and evaluation. This conceptual paper examines how national authorities used specific policy tools to usurp the state's…

The human brain develops rapidly in the first five years of life. High-quality early learning experiences can have a profound and lasting positive effect on young children during these years, setting the stage for success in kindergarten and beyond. This is especially true for young children with high needs who are from low-income families; who…

Four schools in the Milwaukee Public School (MPS) district now have appeared on the state's list of schools needing improvement for four years in a row. After four years on the list, schools are required under federal law to take corrective action, which could include restructuring the internal organization of the school, replacing staff,…

With higher expectations for graduation, what are ways to keep students in school and graduate? To have a 100% graduation rate with students who are prepared for higher education or the work place is certainly a major goal of high schools. This has been strongly reinforced by schools needing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as mandated by No…

This study finds that nearly every school in the Great Lakes states is threatened to fail the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements mandated by the federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) Act. NCLB holds schools and districts accountable for student achievement on state standardized tests and schools that do not make AYP face…

This appendix describes the analytical procedures used to project the status of schools in the Great Lakes state toward meeting AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) requirements from 2005 to 2014. To "make AYP," the school as a whole and each numerically significant subgroup must meet "Annual Measurable Objectives" (annual…