In this essay, we explore the importance of state financial aid programs for both states and the students they serve. Effective state financial aid policy benefits from rigorous research that engages partners from a variety of roles, such as state agencies, legislative staff, and intermediary organizations. It also benefits from the engagement of…

The California Master Plan for Higher Education sets a policy objective of equity through access to higher education. The California State University system is California's primary institution for providing the social mobility that accompanies a four-year college degree. The purpose of this study is to examine the education lifecycle outcomes for…

In 2009, Excelencia in Education launched the Ensuring America's Future initiative to inform, organize, and engage leaders in a tactical plan to increase Latino college completion. This initiative included the release of a benchmarking guide for projections of degree attainment disaggregated by race/ethnicity that offered multiple metrics to track…

The authors describe environmental service-learning (SL) programs in Florida high schools and colleges through a statewide program census that explored (a) academic, service, and reflection program features; (b) effects of Furco's SL outcome domains on student outcomes; and (c) program partnerships. The results of the study reveal that secondary…

As part of the educational planning process, the Oregon State Board of Higher Education requested this review of alternative models for the Oregon University System (OUS). Staff of the Board of Higher Education synthesized existing literature on the variety of U.S. higher education governance structures, including newer models such as the public…

In 2005, Colorado lawmakers radically changed the state's higher education funding system. Until this point Colorado, like other states, had supported higher education by appropriating operating revenues to the institutions and providing some financial aid to low-income students. But in 2005, instead of giving the state's general funds for…

This Critical Issue Bibliography (CRIB) sheet focuses on performance indicators in higher education. Performance indicators are concrete pieces of information about a condition or result of public action that is regularly produced, publicly reported, and systematically used for planning, monitoring, or resource allocation. The resources in this…

Part 1 of this paper briefly describes the Service Learning 2000 partnership that joined Stanford University, K-12 schools, and community organizations in a collaborative effort to promote service learning throughout California. In part 2, the paper examines how the Service Learning 2000 Center has established a niche for service learning at the…

Some steps toward the integration of media and visual literacy across the curriculum of secondary school classrooms are described, focusing on a project in Pennsylvania that uses collaborative processes to involve educators at secondary and higher levels in the design, development, and implementation of a statewide integrated framework for visual…

Tech prep programs integrate academic, occupational, and employability during the last 2 years of high school and the first 2 years of college, combining the best of college-prep academics with the best of vocational and technical education. The Ohio Tech Prep program, jointly administered by the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio Department of…

This document reprints a series of articles appearing in the Parsippany, New Jersey, "Daily Record" on October 25-30, 1987 and November 9, 1987. The series stresses that the New Jersey special education system has vastly improved from what existed prior to the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act, but that the system still…

The current status and future directions of the field of mental disabilities in Iowa are discussed in the following papers, among others: "Regular Education Initiative and Its Impact on Mental Disabilities" (Carol Bradley); "Mild Mental Retardation Across the Lifespan: Current and Future Considerations" (James Patton);…

Adult education in the United States is again beginning to emerge as a potentially important dimension of national policy as a way to retrain the work force to be internationally competitive. Skepticism has been expressed about what "retraining" actually means. Federal government initiatives for adult and continuing education have been few and far…

This book is intended to give technology providers a better understanding of the dynamics of interactive distance learning (DL). For technology consumers it provides an understanding of the basics of available telecommunication technologies and the tradeoffs among available alternatives. Among the topics discussed in the book's 12 chapters are the…

The purpose of this document is to suggest ways in which teacher education in Florida could be changed in order to facilitate and promote the successful integration of academic and vocational education in schools throughout the state. The introduction includes a definition of the term "integration," a discussion of the assumptions…