What can the federal government do to help ensure that the public schools attended by children living in poverty have enough resources to serve their students? In this brief, we describe existing federal efforts to support education spending in high-poverty districts, discuss their limitations, and suggest alternative approaches for federal…

Private postsecondary education leaders are concerned with the value of education and the benefits students receive after graduation. Federal regulations dictate that private postsecondary education institutions will not qualify for Title IV funds if they do not meet minimum student outcome requirements, including cohort default rates and 90/10…

In response to comments on U.S. Department of Education (Department) guidance on how states and local education agencies (LEA) should determine equitable services for non-public schools under the CARES Act, the Department issued an interim final rule (IFR) on June 25, 2020. The IFR confirms the guidance, stating that LEAs should count all students…

Governor Whitmer's April 2020 decision to extend the shutdown of school buildings through the remainder of the academic year came with a guarantee to preserve districts' 2019-2020 funding levels, provided they met a few basic conditions. One condition was to continue paying all district employees, even if staff members needed to be redeployed to…

On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law (P.L. 116-136). The CARES Act includes $3.5 billion in supplemental appropriations for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). This report provides an overview of the CCDBG provisions in the CARES Act. Among other things, these…

Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is the single largest federal investment in K-12 schools, making it a key tool for driving opportunity and closing the achievement gap. Title I provides financial assistance to schools based on the number of low-income students they enroll. Schools receiving the grants are required to…

The formula used to allocate federal funding for state and local special education programs is one of the Individual with Disabilities Act's most critical components. The formula not only serves as the primary mechanism for dividing available federal dollars among states, it also represents policymakers' intent to equalize educational…

Purpose: New policy proposals to increase funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)--including recent efforts by the Biden-Harris administration to "fully fund" IDEA--bring a new sense of urgency to understanding how federal special education dollars are distributed among states. In this study, we evaluate…

The Pathways for Academic Career and Employment (PACE) program is established to provide funding to community colleges for the development of programs that will lead to gainful, quality, in-state employment for members of target populations by providing them with both effective academic and employment training to ensure gainful employment and…

We exploit differences in state special education funding systems based on special education enrollment ('bounty systems') or on total student enrollment ('census systems') to assess whether funding systems impact teacher turnover, teacher specialty, special education enrollment, state education spending, average class sizes, and teacher effort.…

The population of English learners (ELs) in K-12 schools continues to grow. Between the 2009-10 and 2014-15 school years, the percentage of English learners increased in over half of the states, and in 2017, English learners made up 10.1% of the total student population. Research suggests that in their transition to English, non-native speakers…

The Pathways for Academic Career and Employment (PACE) program is established to provide funding to community colleges for the development of programs that will lead to gainful, quality, in-state employment for members of target populations by providing them with both effective academic and employment training to ensure gainful employment and…

Congress enacted the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) 50 years ago as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War on Poverty." The most expansive federal education bill ever passed, it was developed as redress, establishing that poor children needed more educational services than wealthier children. Title I of the ESEA…

To address the increased needs of students and schools resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has enacted a series of three relief and stimulus bills -- the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA), and the American Rescue Plan…

The rapid emergence and authorization of statewide, fully online, virtual charter schools has resulted in the need for states to identify potentially inequitable effects of disability service funding policies. This article describes state funding policies and the designation of responsibilities regarding the provision of special education services…