Research has demonstrated the wide-ranging and positive benefits from high-quality publicly-funded prekindergarten education. Yet, access for families with young children remains uneven, with significant gaps across geography, income, race, and ethnicity. Over the last few decades, many states have worked to broaden access to prekindergarten…

This paper examines how colleges respond to the introduction of broad merit aid programs. Previous research has emphasized the impact of merit aid on enrollment, student choices, and post-matriculation outcomes. Yet much less is known about how state-implemented merit aid programs affect colleges' financial decisions. To explore impacts, college…

The Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (subsequently renamed the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS) was created via ACT 1375 during the 1997 Regular Legislative Session. The first college freshman class to receive TOPS awards entered postsecondary education in the fall of 1998. ACT 1202 of the 2001 Regular Legislative Session…

This article is the third in a larger study of schooling during the Great Depression that seeks to elucidate specific examples of elementary social studies teaching and learning in the South during this time, particularly in Arkansas. Responding to Christine Woyshner's (2009) concern that histories of social studies should look beyond national…

The district-level implementation of a systemic educational change in teacher evaluation mandated at the state level was studied at the elementary and middle school level in a small rural school system. The historical background of teacher evaluation processes from early American schooling to the 1909s was studied. The pilot case study then…

The Indiana team approached its research from the hypothesis that one's quality of life is related to the educational system and proposed to explore the relationship between Indiana's educational system and its quality of life. Because of the comprehensiveness of the term "quality of life," the team decided to limit its study to the…

This document examines the chronological history of financing the Alaskan public school system. The first section traces the influence of the Greco-Russian Church and the Russian-American Company on education in Russian Alaska. The second section focuses on early United States education efforts, including the Sheldon Jackson era, the Organic Act…

Designed to help Alaskan Native communities and organizations, State and Federal officials, citizens of Alaska, and professional educators in dealing with changing educational situations, the report provides a reliable and succinct history of Alaskan education from the time of the area's purchase from Russia in 1867. One of the major problems in…

This research study focuses an historical case study on a large-scale intervention called Florida SchoolYear (SY2000), which was a visionary example of how the state of Florida tried to design and develop a means for delivering quality education. By studying the Florida SY2000 Initiative, this research study examined issue-oriented questions…

This case study, part of the State Structures for the Governance of Higher Education study, focuses on governance and related issues in Illinois' higher education system. The study's overall purpose was to examine differences among states in their governance structures, and to determine if differences in performance were related to governing…

This report explores state level governance as it is currently practiced in the states of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, and Washington. After a brief introduction, section II's attention to the evolution of state boards offers a historical perspective of state intervention in educational policy-making, a review of major questions concerning the…

This study of performance contracting was made in 1974-75. It differs from other studies in that it is based on a comprehensive body of data, including information about state-supported contracts in Michigan and California; it is focused on the role of monetary incentives in education rather than on the particular instructional programs; it made a…

State program practices in norm-referenced testing (NRT) are described as found in the 1990-91 school year and prior years to provide information on years of administration of the same test and the age of the norms. All 50 State Departments of Education were surveyed in 2 stages. States without NRT were asked to described their testing policies;…

Since 1906, hundreds of thousands of Alberta, Canada secondary school students have taken some form of provincially set and scored examinations. The grade levels of students required to write such examinations have changed several times, and tests have involved formats which included various combinations of essay, short answer, matching, and…

Offering an overview and informal appraisal of the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) and its amendments since 1962, the study focuses on the vocational education program and the development of its legislation and administration. The 12 years of manpower training legislation from MDTA to the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act…