There is growing unease about suspension and expulsion of children at the preschool level. Preschoolers are expelled at three times the rate of K-12 students (Gilliam, 2005). Boys--particularly African-American boys--comprise a disproportionate number of these cases, a fact that has caused concern among parents, policymakers, and advocates alike.…

CHILDREN AT RISK, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization, undertook a year-long effort to study the subsidized child care system in Texas. This included an in-depth analysis of the system's local and state partners, as well as the promotion of the study's findings and key recommendations. This report is one of the products of this…

The purpose of this policy analysis was to examine the responses of selected states to the special education monitoring requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) with particular attention paid to the years after this most recent reauthorization. This study examined the legislative and litigative history of…

U.S. educators and policymakers are concerned about the poor performance of the public schools, particularly schools that serve students from low-income families. Although education is primarily a state function, the federal government also has a longstanding interest in improving education for disadvantaged students, and it targets funding to…

Technological innovation is driving fundamental changes in all aspects of our lives. This is especially true of digital content, as our use of e-books, downloadable music, streaming television and movies, and online social networks has exploded. However, the explosive growth in our use of digital content seems so far to have eluded many of the 50…

Policymakers and researchers have focused on improving the quality of our nation's 3 million teachers to raise the achievement of students in key academic areas, such as reading and mathematics. Given the importance of teacher quality to student achievement and the key role federal and state governments play in supporting teacher quality, GAO's…

As the national education policy community prepares for the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), revamping the school improvement approach leveraged by accountability systems has risen to the top of the agenda. There is an emerging consensus that the school improvement process should be systemic, led by states and…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

This brief enhances recommendations and policy strategies from the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) publication "Reading to Achieve: A Governor's Guide to Adolescent Literacy". It reflects lessons from recent research and best practices from states selected to receive NGA Center support to develop statewide…

Response to intervention (RTI) is a framework for providing interventions and services at increasing levels of intensity until students succeed. The framework helps teachers and schools provide instruction and interventions matched to student needs, monitor progress frequently to guide decisions about changes in instruction or goals, and apply…

Findings by C. Ripple and colleagues justify a continued role for the federal Head Start program, but only if Head Start invests seriously and consistently in high-quality programs and ends the present fragmentation of services. Calls for effective technical assistance to programs and active collaboration with other agencies. (SLD)

Gubernatorial mandates involving value-added assessment and teacher competency testing have intensified external expectations of the institutional research community. With governors thus promoting quality in higher education, institutional researchers must exert leadership in identifying potential implications of state policies. The image of 20…

The results of a one-year project to determine the status of provisions for consumer education throughout the country are reported in this document. A section on the observations and recommendations of the advisory committee of the consumer's education project serves as the document's introduction. Part I, background and overview, analyzes the…

This report presents the results of a national forum on the compensation of child care workers which sought to develop strategies to break the link between what parents pay for child care and what child care providers earn. A total of 56 policymakers, researchers, economists, and child care advocates met for 2 days to review current child care…

While current early education and care funding still reaches only a fraction of preschool children, some states now have considerable experience in coordinating subsidized child care, Head Start, and state prekindergarten initiatives to enhance early education and learning opportunities for young children. Drawing on the experiences of Georgia,…