In this article the author starts from the premise that, although there were no renowned Indian poets at Carlisle and other Indian boarding schools in the United States, students in federal boarding schools read and wrote poetry. She argues that the rhetorically bold Carlisle poems--along with the letters and articles published in the Carlisle…

In 1965, President Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act, giving birth to the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. The act declared, "Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education, and access to the arts…

In designing multiple-measure evaluation systems for teachers and principals, one of the key questions to emerge is: how to obtain student growth data for teachers of academic subjects and grades not covered by statewide assessments. Race to the Top grantees that began early to implement new evaluation systems are well on their way to…

More than 40 states plan to assess student performance with new tests tied to the Common Core State Standards. In summer 2013, results from Common Core-aligned tests in New York showed a steep decline in outcomes. Common Core advocates hailed the scores as an honest accounting of school and student performance, while others worried that they…

During the Great Depression, following the stock market crash of 1929, the nation's greatest financial crisis, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration created the Public Works of Art Project. It was the first federal government program designed to support the arts by putting artists back to work. The program's purpose was to alleviate…

Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in December 2015 signaled a new era for teacher evaluation reform. Under ESSA, states and districts have greater autonomy to design and implement teacher evaluation systems independent of federal influence. This new flexibility brings with it new responsibilities and challenges for states and…

This article describes how school librarians in Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) in Georgia addressed a concern regarding the performance evaluation tool that stemmed from the passing of House Bill (HB) 244, which was passed in response to the state's Race to the Top (RT3) application requirements. The bill became law on July 1, 2014, and the…

The road from prekindergarten (pre-K) to post-doctoral (post-doc) work is riddled with potholes, detours, u-turns, and construction zones. National education initiatives such as No Child Left Behind, the Common Core, Race to the Top, Performance-Based Funding, College Readiness and Completion Acts, and Post-Graduate Gainful Employment Reports…

Universities develop strategic planning documents, and as part of that planning process, logic models are developed for specific programs within the university. This article examines the long-standing pecan program at New Mexico State University and the deficiencies and successes in the evolution of its logic model. The university's agricultural…

The 16 Race to the Top district winners, pushed by $400 million in federal grants that put a premium on personalized learning, are embarking on vastly different makeovers of the classroom experience--from districtwide approaches to a narrower blueprint focused on middle school math. Despite the divergent approaches, a review of the winning…

The Race to the Top State competitions provided incentives to States to adopt bold and comprehensive reforms in elementary and secondary education and laid the foundation for unprecedented innovation. A total of 46 States and the District of Columbia put together plans to implement college- and career-ready standards, use data systems to guide…

This publication highlights Rhode Island's Collaborative Learning for Outcomes (CLO), a new progress monitoring process that leads to two-way communication between the State and its 50 participating and two involved local educational agencies.

This paper interrogates the concept of opportunity. Opportunity programs provide access to educational services and assist students to overcome barriers. However, the language governing them constricts and controls both the programs and staff-student relationships. A Foucauldian analysis of the regulations governing a federally funded program…

This Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) annual performance report for the year 2016 describes New Jersey's accomplishments, lessons learned, challenges, and strategies New Jersey will implement to address those challenges. The cross agency RTT-ELC team has continued to implement the eleven projects that the federal partners have…

Minnesota's vision for its Race to the Top -- Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) work was based in years of research showing the impact of high quality early childhood programs on children's school readiness and success in life. Minnesota's State plan was to increase access to high quality early learning development programs for children across…