Superintendents and other school administrators live with tensions in political economy. The voting public believes school funding is fixed when the economy expands and new state programs are introduced. Administrators are publicly criticized when, strained for resources, their schools cannot perform within the "do more with less" paradigm. This…

Through the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) subsidizes child care for low-income families whose parents work or attend education or training programs. In fiscal year 2009, the CCDF budget was $7 billion. States are responsible for determining program priorities and overseeing funds.…

The Michigan Closed Case Survey examined workers' compensation cases that were closed in the fall of 1978. Specific objectives of the study were to compare the workers' compensation experience of the insured and self-insured employer populations, to provide an empirical description of the workers' compensation system in Michigan, and to determine…

Presented are five papers selected from five regional 1973 conferences on financing education programs for handicapped children. R. Rossmiller's paper, "Coming to Grips with Costs and Expenditures" discusses such program aspects as organizational programs, financial policies, population identification, and empirical and theoretical studies. An…

This report discusses the outcomes of a survey that investigated data collection efforts of state special education dispute resolution contacts in all 50 states. Results indicate that all states maintain some level (directly or through contractual arrangements) of basic information on the number and location of formal complaints, mediations, and…

Written for Iowa's school psychologists, the report examines current issues in mental retardation including the problem of definition, court actions affecting the schools, and trends in educational programming, evaluation, and diagnosis. Considered are reasons why mental retardation is difficult to define (such as the lack of an acceptable…

To date, Ohio has not developed a systematic program for ensuring equal educational opportunity. In this paper options available for state policy which would bring about such a program are considered. Information is presented about the legal premises behind desegregation. Legal alternatives to the courts, as well as legal decisions regarding…

The report examines the impact of the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children (PARC) on handicapped children's rights to appropriate education in the state of Pennsylvania. An introductory section looks at such problems as the misclassification of children, disproportionate racial representation in the mildly handicapped population, and the…

The purpose of this paper is to provide some background to the school finance problem in Connecticut, to digest parts of three financial reports, and to provide a framework for further discussion. The reports were sponsored by the Connecticut Education Association, the Governor's Commission on Tax Reform, and the Education Finance Study Commission…

Adequate grievance procedures for use by students are still relatively uncommon in public schools. A survey of a limited number of specialists in student grievance processes, designed to indicate the range of thinking in the field rather than to find a consensus, showed general agreement that due process and legitimate grievance channels are…

This report investigated the financial expenditures of states for services for individuals with developmental disabilities and examined the factors that influenced the level of expenditure. Eight multiple-regression models are presented which explain 70 to 88 percent of the variation in states' total expenditures. In addition to the obvious…

Presented is the final report of the Massachusetts Commission on Legal and Civil Rights of the Developmentally Disabled formed to investigate the civil rights problems of developmentally disabled citizens and to recommend and take action to correct the problems. It is noted that the report deals with the following areas: self-determination and…

A survey was conducted on the use of lay advocates to investigate state reaction to a recent court decision in Delaware on the use of lay advocates and the availability of representation for parents of students with disabilities in due process hearings. The Delaware Supreme Court found in 1999 that lay advocates representing parents at due process…

Under the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 (P. L. 96-272), Congress outlined a case review system intended to assure that child welfare agencies deal directly with various aspects of child placement. The second of four volumes, this document presents case study descriptions of the hearings within the context of the case review…

Teacher testing-related attitudes and practices related to court-ordered achievement testing were studied through a mail survey completed by 79 elementary school teachers in a midwestern urban district. Teachers engaged in a large number of test preparation practices and reported finding minimal value in purpose or results of testing. (SLD)