Every year, State of the State addresses offer time for new and incumbent governors to outline policy priorities and celebrate state accomplishments. Since 2005, we've tracked, analyzed and identified education policy trends in governors' State of the State addresses to help you understand trending education issues across states. This year's…

Change swept throughout the country with the 2018 elections, bringing 20 new governors into office. Whether returning or starting their first term, governors are taking the opportunity in their State of the State addresses to highlight achievements and outline plans for the future. Every governor who has given an address has mentioned an…

Any organization--a small business or start-up, a large established company, a nonprofit, and every level of government--depends on leadership to achieve more than the sum of its parts. The same is true for schools, where a single principal shapes the practice of dozens of teachers and the learning of hundreds--sometimes thousands--of students.…

In laying out policy priorities in their 2020 State of the State addresses, governors recognized the role the public education system plays in supporting strong economies. Often citing the need to align education with the 21st century's knowledge economy, governors agreed that a high-quality education is the key to both an individual's and the…

New laws in California have set the state on a course for some potentially significant changes to the curriculum, including a measure that revisits the matter of teaching Algebra 1 in 8th grade and another that revamps the state's textbook-adoption process and hands districts greater leeway in choosing instructional materials. The algebra-related…

This article features Mitch Landrieu and his contributions to the upliftment of Louisiana through libraries. After the onslaught of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Landrieu said they realized how important libraries are. Now in his second term as lieutenant governor of Louisiana, Landrieu oversees the Office of the State Library along with the…

This document is a description of the New England Program in Teacher Education (NEPTE), which is a six-state regional program intended to improve the quality of teacher education in New England. The main focus of the NEPTE staff is its state field agents. Activities of the field agents include the following: workshops; evaluation of proposals; the…

Interviews with state legislators from Wisconsin (D. Bezruki), Massachusetts (T. P. Kennedy), and Virginia (P. Leone) illustrate the roles that evaluation is playing in the current state budget crisis. The influence of evaluation data appears largely specific to individual programs rather than systematically applied to the budgeting process. (SLD)

This paper explores what lessons can be learned from the experiences of states that instituted NCLB-like accountability systems prior to 2001 (here called first-generation accountability systems). It looks at the experiences of three smaller states (Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina), four larger ones (California, Florida, New York, Texas), and…

Forty-nine state superintendents of public instruction responded to the sixth biannual assessment of U.S. gifted/talented education programs. The questionnaire addressed the following topics: certification requirements for teachers, state funding, impact of tax limitation measures, state guidelines for gifted/talented programs, student selection…

Students in New Hampshire will not be alone when they will take their new state mathematics and reading tests. Their fellow students in Rhode Island and Vermont will be taking the same exams along with them. This article reports that New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont have joined forces to create reading and math tests in grades 3-8. They…

The educational programs that have been proposed and implemented by Democratic governors in 29 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands are briefly outlined in this report. A list of educational contacts for 23 states, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands is included. (LMI)

This new serial publication is designed to provide teachers, administrators, and policy makers who work with English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) students with a forum for presenting innovations, concerns, and recommendations related to the schooling of language minority students. The main section of the publication, "Describing Our…

The report provides information on the current issues, financial priorities, and legislative concerns faced by higher education at the state level, based upon observations of State Higher Education Executive Officers in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. The most important tasks facing higher education were identified as…

Information on 41 state government training and development programs was gathered from a survey sent to training directors in all state governments. This digest summarizes the response of each state training director to the survey. Each state summary contains information on the four major topical areas addressed in the survey and is designed to…