In every classroom across our great state--from Monroe to Manistee and Mt. Pleasant to Marquette--every Michigan student deserves access and opportunity to the educational resources and support to realize a bright future. Yet for too long, Michigan's education system has served as an engine of inequality when it should be providing opportunities…

London schools continue to constitute an extraordinary "success story." By common consent, the government school system in London achieves extremely good results compared to the rest of England, and students from disadvantaged backgrounds do particularly well. In 2014, the authors sought to document and provisionally explain the London…

The overall results from the 2011-12 student survey were positive. The most positive results pertained to overall satisfaction with the participants' school, with the most unfavorable results centered on the consistency of challenging work being assigned to students and bullying. In general, 4th grade students responded more favorably than 7th and…

This report provides information on the preparation provided to teacher candidates from teacher training programs so that they can fully use assessment data to improve classroom instruction. It follows a similar shorter report the authors released in March 2012. In this newest report, the authors have significantly expanded their initial sampling…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is more than a school system, it is a community. It's a community of people working together to provide Montgomery County students with an education that prepares them for success today, tomorrow, and in the years to come. That is MCPS' core purpose: to prepare students to thrive in their future. The Annual…

Are parents an untapped resource in improving and reimagining K-12 education in Kansas City? What do they think would enhance student learning and what are they willing to do to help their children get the education they deserve? These are among the questions explored in an in-depth survey of 1,566 parents with children now in public school in the…

America's colleges and universities have long been the envy of the world. But it would be hard to think of a time when the public has viewed American higher education with greater skepticism. It is a tragedy that colleges and universities are increasingly characterized by their high costs, not their high standards. This fifth edition of…

This paper documents the importance of continued investment in basic education and argues that investments need to be carefully targeted to address the constraints that limit the coverage and quality of education if they are to provide expected benefits. Part I begins with a discussion of the returns to investment in education. Part II then…

This report provides information on child care in southeastern Pennsylvania, discussing what is available and affordable for working families as well as current efforts to improve child care quality. Specific areas discussed in the report include why high-quality child care matters, types of child care, regulation, how families pay for child care,…

One of the working papers in the final report of the Arizona Board of Regents' Task Force on Excellence, Efficiency and Competitiveness, this document presents statistical data on the transition of Arizona's universities, consolidating many ad hoc analyses. It lists selected data that helped identify and develop Task Force issues and describes the…

In a previous Illinois Education Research Council (IERC) policy research report, The Distribution of Teacher Quality in Illinois (IERC 2005-1), we introduced the Illinois Teacher Quality Index (TQI). The TQI is a school-level indicator of teacher quality that describes a school's concentration of certain teacher attributes that research suggests…

In 2007, the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) requested that the RAND Corporation monitor implementation of year 2 (2007-2008) of the district's Excellence for All (EFA) initiative and provide feedback to district staff, the PPS board, and other stakeholders. In 2008, RAND expanded to a more comprehensive focus on effective implementation of EFA's…

This report presents a plan for improving the education of minority students in the United States. Section 1 is an introduction. Section 2 presents the goals for improvement of minority education by the year 2000. Section 3 discusses why the United States needs an educational system that works for all students. Section 4 discusses the minority…

This report summarizes the major points of a plan for improving the education of minority students in the United States. The following sections are included in this report: (1) "A Common Future"; (2) "A New Foundation"; (3) "Where We Start"; (4) "Our Goals for the Year 2000"; (5) "Recommended Strategies for Achieving Quality Education for…

As one of the working papers in the final report of the Arizona Board of Regents' Task Force on Excellence, Efficiency and Competitiveness, this document makes a comparison between Arizona's system of higher education and those of other states, in order to place Arizona's higher education efforts in perspective. The number of universities and…