Despite claims that we now live in a post-truth society, it remains commonplace for policy makers to consult research evidence to increase the robustness of decision making. Few scholars of evidence-policy interfaces, however, have used legislatures as sites of study, despite the fact that they play a critical role in modern democracies. There is…

This document records testimony from a hearing before the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development of the Committee on Education and the Workforce exposing the dangers of the influence of foreign adversaries on college campuses. Opening statements were provided by: (1) Honorable Burgess Owens, Chairman, Subcommittee on Higher…

In 2019, the U.S. Department of Education (DED) began increasing its enforcement of the Higher Education Act, Section 117 statute, which provides instructions for institutional reporting regarding foreign and contracts. The three questions guiding this article include: What were DED's stated premises for the investigations? How was international…

Scholars of political economy have raised the question of whether recent populist movements around the world signal the decline of neoliberal hegemony. What would such a decline mean for education policy, an arena that has been dominated by a neoliberal common sense for several decades? This study investigates the policy discourse of former U.S.…

At a time when student loan debt continues to mount for many, the Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program--established in 2007 and administered by Education--is intended to encourage individuals to pursue careers in public service. Senate Report 116-48 included a provision for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the…

In today's interconnected world, many career fields--such as diplomacy, national security, and business--need individuals with knowledge about world languages and cultures. To address these areas of needed expertise--both at the federal level as well as in the education, business, and nonprofit sectors--the Higher Education Act of 1965, as…

Purpose: In December 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which was a long overdue reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. What is remarkable about this new federal legislation is that it explicitly reverses the decades-long federal effort to more tightly couple the U.S. educational system. While not…

June 23, 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX. This federal civil rights law has been credited with profoundly changing education in the United States by barring sex discrimination in the nation's schools. Title IX, along with other equity laws, helped to unlock access to educational and athletic opportunities, paving the way…

Context: In the past two years, states have implemented sweeping reforms to their teacher evaluation systems in response to Race to the Top legislation and, more recently, NCLB waivers. With these new systems, policymakers hope to make teacher evaluation both more rigorous and more grounded in specific job performance domains such as teaching…

The Data Quality Campaign and the National School Boards Association's Center for Public Education prepared this document to help school board members respond to questions about education data, explain its importance to improving school and student performance, and understand how boards can help ensure student privacy.

This article examines the gap between a federally-mandated wellness policy and its practice in U.S. schools. To address the problem of childhood obesity, the United States government requires school districts to develop a District Wellness Policy (DWP) that promotes a healthy school environment, healthy food choices, nutrition education, and…

The modern university has been called, "a series of separate schools and departments held together by a central heating system," and, in a play on this line, "a series of individual faculty entrepreneurs held together by a common grievance over parking." Whether parking, heating, or, more probable today, WiFi, these…

In classic Western movies, the good guy could be frequently identified by his trademark white Stetson hat, whereas the bad guy always wore black. James J. Gallagher wore many hats during his career that spanned over six decades; he too would be known as the "man in the white hat,"--trusted to do the right thing. From 1967 to 1970,…

Among education researchers, there is a growing consensus that college and career readiness depends on not just academic knowledge and skills but on a wide range of social and developmental competencies, as well--such as the ability to monitor one's own learning, persist at challenging tasks, solve complex problems, set realistic goals, and…

This article presents a set of recommendations that promote a more nuanced, meaningful accountability policy for English learners in the next authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The authors argue that the ESEA reauthorization must strengthen the law's capacity-building purpose so that federal, state, and local leaders…