Big corporations and food service companies are making millions of dollars from public school meal programs, often to the detriment of students' health. Jennifer Gaddis explains how government policies and funding shortfalls have affected what is served is school cafeterias. Common cost-cutting measures include serving cheap and easy-to-prepare…

Over the last two decades, federal and state policy makers have launched a number of ambitious, large-scale education reform initiatives--No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Common Core State Standards, and others--only to see them sputter and fail. In 2017, the authors convened a number of leading scholars to explore why those initiatives…

In recent years, the federal government (under Republican and Democratic administrations alike) has encouraged the outsourcing of core parts of public education's work, including testing and test preparation, teaching and tutoring, data collection, and human resources management. However, researchers have found little evidence to support policy…

In 2016, the federal government proposed and adopted the Every Student Succeeds Act, which retracted the federal government's prior control over states' teacher evaluation systems, permitting more local control. Kevin Close, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, and Clarin Collins collected information from states to determine the degree to which states were…

The only thing that more testing will tell us is what we already know: The schools that disadvantaged children attend are not being given the supports necessary to produce achievement gains. Students cannot be tested out of poverty, and while NCLB did take us a step forward by requiring schools to produce evidence that students were learning, it…

Today we look to determine teaching quality through a combination of observation, surveys, and test scores. These measures fail to answer the most important question about quality teaching: How is it accomplished? How has this teacher used questioning today, and what drove their decision to do so? How has this teacher structured independent…

Preschool is a crucial time for obesity prevention, as children are developing eating and physical activity habits. A lack of physical activity at preschool may contribute more to overweight children than parental influences such as modeling and supporting physical activity or providing fitness equipment in the home. Let Me Play is a comprehensive…

In March, the author invited the three leading presidential contenders--Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama--to submit essays about their educational platforms. Obama submitted an essay while McCain did not. Due to seemingly lack of response from the candidates, the author concluded that no one is sure what to do at the national level,…

The largest issue for schools is not extending the school day or year--as useful as those policies might be--but of meeting time requirements within the constraints of the budgets and personnel given them. Policy makers rarely understand how their policies impact practice. Author Marilyn Crawford suggests a policy-talks-to-practice strategy that…

Looks at past evaluation of compensatory education, suggests new approaches to evaluation, and makes recommendations about program implementation. (IRT)

The Federal-State-local, public-private right to read effort is evaluated by the former acting director of the Right to Read National Reading Center. (JF)

The new director of the Right to Read Program answers criticisms of that program by its former director. (JF)

Describes a successful high school dropout prevention program in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. (JF)

Attempts to analyze what happened to the high hopes for ESEA Title III and how its original direction can be modified to achieve its original goal of promoting beneficial change in American education while lessening the time between development of new teaching practices and their adoption in the classroom. Considers the specific impact of ESEA…

Criticizes the federal regulations that encourage waste and cheating in the school lunch program. (IRT)