A child's early years play a significant role in determining their chances later on in life, including their chances of social mobility. But the poorest children are already 11 months behind their peers when they start at primary school, with efforts to close the gap stalling, and evidence that the gap has started to widen once again in recent…

Frederick M. Hess and Michael Q. McShane have gathered a diverse group of scholars to examine the shifting federal role in education across the presidential administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. While the administrations were vastly different, one thing remained constant: an ongoing and significant expansion of the federal role in…

In "The Fight for America's Schools", Barbara Ferman brings together a diverse group of contributors to investigate how parents, communities, teachers, unions, and students are mobilizing to oppose market-based reforms in education. Drawing on a series of rich case studies, the book illustrates how disparate groups can forge new…

This 2015 report is third in a series of annual reports on virtual education in the U.S. It is organized in three major sections: Section I examines the policy and political landscape associated with virtual schooling and describes the current state of affairs related to finance and governance, instructional program quality, and teacher quality.…

In the five years since the first National Education Policy Center (NEPC) "Annual Report on Virtual Education" was released in 2013, virtual education has continued to be a focal point for policymakers. Proponents argue that virtual education can expand student choices and improve the efficiency of public education. In particular,…

This report is the second of a series of annual reports by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) on virtual education in the U.S. The NEPC reports contribute to the existing evidence and discourse on virtual education by providing an objective analysis of the evolution and performance of full-time, publicly funded K-12 virtual schools. This…

This national study, which comprehensively reviews 311 virtual schools operating in the United States, finds serious and systemic problems with the nation's full-time cyber schools. Despite virtual schools' track record of students falling behind their peers academically or dropping-out at higher rates, states and districts continue to expand…

This edited collection synthesizes current research on the most promising methods and models for designing coherent science instruction. Arising from the National Science Foundation-funded Delineating and Evaluating Coherent Instructional Designs for Education (DECIDE) project, this volume combines the insights of researchers from two Centers for…

Education finance has emerged as one of the most pressing public policy issues of the new century. Americans spend more than $500 billion a year on elementary and secondary education, yet neither policy-makers nor practitioners seems to know how to align these resources with student learning goals. In fact, spending increases have outstripped…

This volume explores whether the nation's early childhood programs are boosting child development and preparing children for schooling and proposes reforms that would improve the programs. The volume contains contrasting papers on the success of Head Start, Early Head Start, and home-visiting programs and on policies that would improve these three…

"Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life" presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning…

Contributors to this collection examine how today's federal education programs work and show how, instead of working for school improvement, these programs have begun to function as obstacles to the efforts of reform-minded states and schools. The following essays are included: (1) "Overview: Thirty-Four Years of Dashed Hopes" (Chester…

In October 2007, EdSource hosted a policy convening in response to findings from the "Getting Down to Facts" research project. These four briefs were prepared by a working group of district Collaborative members to inform the dialogue of this "Getting from Facts to Policy" conference. They advocate for new state policy in the…

For nearly 30 years the federal government has funded education programs to help disadvantaged children succeed in school. This book examines and evaluates three existing programs (Project Head Start, Project Follow Through, and the so-called Chapter 1 programs of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act) and describes the newly-created…

Thirteen articles, with an introduction, focus on the overall nature and effect of federal involvement in education and suggest what the federal role ought to be. The first five articles examine federal policy dilemmas in the areas of federal educational expenditures, fragmentation of federal programs, elementary and secondary education, criteria…