This article explores the many ways in which states can and are addressing racial equity in problem solving and policymaking. The authors explore national data that make the case for addressing bias and advancing equity in state policy; share strategies and best practices for engaging families and communities; and provide examples of policies that…

K-12 education resources are often allocated non-strategically, with schools spending time and money on activities that have little relationship to student outcomes. Most of these decisions take place within districts, rooted in the processes of setting schedules, staffing levels, and assignments, and creating final budgets. Local Education…

Nationwide, states face declining or plateauing investments in education. These financial constraints, coupled with increased standards for student achievement through the widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), create a heightened need for strategic resource use. However, districts are not currently using resources…

Communities face powerful challenges--a high-school dropout epidemic, youth unemployment, teen pregnancy--that require powerful solutions. In a climate of increasingly constrained resources, those solutions must help communities to achieve more with less. A new kind of community collaborative--an approach that aspires to significant,…

Objective:This report extends earlier accounts by addressing the effects of the Strong African American Families (SAAF) program across 65 months. Two hypotheses were tested: (a) Rural African American youths randomly assigned to participate in SAAF would demonstrate lower rates of alcohol use than would control youths more than 5 years later, and…

As part of the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) program, schools participated in the Formative Evaluation Process for School Improvement (FEPSI), a package of services mainly provided during two visits each school year. This document reports on the evaluation of training for Georgia educators involved in FEPSI as site researchers.…

One of the tasks of the Council for School Performance is to implement measures of school safety to determine the impact of Georgia Lottery for Education expenditures. During the 1994-95 school year, the council pilot-tested several indicators of school safety. This document presents the results of an evaluation that examined the relevance,…

This document comprises the recommendations of a 13-member Paperwork Reduction Task Force appointed by Georgia's State Superintendent of Schools, in response to concern by educators and the public that the Quality Basic Education Act (QBE) had created a substantial increase in paperwork, particularly for teachers. The task force of teachers,…

The Center for Educational Research and Evaluation of the University of North Carolina (Greensboro) has been contracted to propose standards, indicators of quality, data collection procedures, and instruments for the evaluation of Georgia public schools mandated by the state legislature. The development of these standards and indicators is…

The six sections of this report describe the collection of occupational information on an interstate basis to plan effective education programs for manpower development. Focus is on eight southern states--Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Section 1 discusses two views of vocational…

Since the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act or the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, much has been said and written about the law by a variety of education observers, practitioners, and policymakers from both sides of the political aisle. With support from the Ford, Rockefeller, and Z. Smith Reynolds foundations,…

This report, supported by case studies in Florida (ED508098), Georgia (ED508099), New York (ED508100), and Oregon (ED508101), identifies and examines policy options available to states that are interested in creating sustained K-16 reform. The findings move the K-16 agenda forward by proposing a set of state policy levers that can be used to…