Promise programs are discussed as a policy movement that began with the 2005 launch of the Kalamazoo Promise. Since then, programs bearing the Promise label or sharing similar features have spread across the higher educational landscape, appearing in most states and across postsecondary sectors. Simultaneously, scholarly literature discussing…

Ensuring that students graduate high school prepared for college and careers has become a national priority in the last decade. To support this goal, states have adopted rigorous college and career readiness (CCR) standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. Additionally, states have begun to require students to pass assessments, in…

One of the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act that has gained prominence as a policy focus only in the last several years is the requirement that poor and minority children be served by highly qualified teachers to no less a degree than other, more affluent children. Under the Obama administration, the focus on "highly qualified"…

This project assesses the feasibility of creating a voluntary, nationwide data dictionary that can be used to standardize the reporting of postsecondary accountability reporting requirements for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (otherwise known as Perkins IV). Variables, field codes, and programming instructions,…

The report presents recommendations made by a panel of experts in gifted education regarding education for gifted students in Florida. Among recommendations are those for increasing minority representation in gifted programs, modifying the state definition to complement general intellectual ability with specific academic aptitude, using a multiple…

The report of the Illinois commission on Children focuses on the need for developing a comprehensive service plan for emotionally disturbed (ED) children (birth through 21). Emphasis was placed on a continuum of services from prevention to treatment. Findings and recommendations are listed on seven topics (sample suptopics in parentheses):…

The report examines services for the gifted in West Virginia and offers recommendations for improving those services. In chapter 1, "Study of Best Practices in Educating Gifted Children," Patricia Bruce Mitchell outlines findings from a literature and interview analysis regarding best practices in gifted education, including exemplary…

Defining hunger on the basis of poverty or other nonphysiological criteria is misleading. With nutritional data used by human-service agencies, suggests programs with such conception of hunger hurt the efforts at nutritional change. Uses central Mississippi as an example to propose objective nutritional definition and assessment. (TES)

The report examines implications of applying a functional rather than categorical definition of disabilities to Connecticut's services for the developmentally disabled. Specific objectives included preparation of an overview of services available, an analysis of policy options and system constraints, an analysis of the implications of reorganizing…

This article reports the results of policy research survey examining U.S. government strategies to obtain data on counts of children who are deaf-blind and the issues related to this effort and its outcomes. Problems frequently cited were varying definitions of deaf-blindness among states and lack of accurate data on etiology and severity. (JDD)

The U.S. Department of Education has not yet published an official guidance document for using NAEP achievement level scores to confirm state testing results. A review of the literature, however, identified four principles that inform the valid use of NAEP scores in a confirming analysis. The principles address the appropriate NAEP statistics to…

The National Education Statistical Agenda Committee of the National Forum on Education Statistics established a Task Force in 1995 to study how a state or local education agency might best collect and report data on the incidence of crime, violence, and disciplinary behavior. The Task Force, which consisted of a core group of data providers from…

The two documents combined here both pertain to the same 18 month study of autism in the state of Virginia. "Autism in Virginia" is a six page summary of the 250 page final report; it is intended for parents and professionals needing to get at the highlights of the larger document. The final report presents detailed findings from a study…

The school year 1991-92 was the first in which states reported school district level data on the numbers and types of dropouts in the Common Core of Data (CCD) Agency Universe Survey. Information included numbers of male and female dropouts in 5 racial/ethnic categories for grades 7 through 12. The CCD defined a dropout as a student who had been…

This report describes states' eligibility policies for developmentally delayed and at-risk children, aged birth to 3 years to be served under Part H of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The report is based on policy analysis of 49 states' eligibility policy documents. Results indicated that the wording in states' definitions…