The American Federation of Teachers completed a 50-state study of key elements of state policies designed to ensure that all children, especially those most at risk, have full access to early childhood education. Overall, nearly every state provides funds for some type of preschool program, although the breadth of the programs remains limited. A…

The policy shift to inclusion of students with disabilities in the general classroom, broad interest in school reform, and desire to implement new instructional arrangements for all students is spurring changes in state funding systems for special education. Deliver-system weights, population-based funding, and funding models should help revamp…

Presents a conceptual framework showing that state policy choices affecting division of school financing responsibilities and targeting of state aid to poorer school districts determine the degree of taxpayer equity. The framework explains the relationship between taxpayer and pupil equity and provides indicators to evaluate how state school…

The Arkansas Department of Correction School District initially required educational attendance for inmates with less than a high-school diploma or a fourth-grade Wide Range Achievement Test score. Eventually, attendance was made compulsory for all inmates without high school diplomas. District funding was almost entirely from state education…

Studied the efforts of a state-funded evaluation support unit in Rhode Island to increase evaluation capacity in 13 community-based organizations through a needs assessment, on-site technical assistance, a workshop series, and selected model projects. Measures of organizational needs, staff confidence, and agency progress are used to document…

Describes background for school-to-work effort in Massachusetts, the state's design and implementation of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) of 1994, the local impact of the state's STWOA grant, challenges to making school-to-work a top priority of state education reform strategies to improve student achievement, and state and local…

Generating public support for large capital investments in a public university's decaying facilities is a difficult task at best. This chapter describes how one institution built support for a $2.3 billion investment by the state and how this has lead to changes in the delivery of student services. (Contains 10 references.) (Author)

Discusses funding and other issues contributing to the emergence of a new type of higher education institution--a "hybrid university" that maintains its historic ties to the public higher education environment even as it acquires more traits of private institutions. (EV)

Employed various statistical techniques to measure fiscal equity in Virginia. The new state aid system for financing education was unable to mitigate large and increasing disparities in education revenues between more and less affluent localities and a strong and growing linkage between revenue and wealth. Includes 34 footnotes. (MLH)

Summarizes 20 statements on the tying of state aid to performance measures which were presented at the 1989 Spring Conference of the New Jersey Library Association. The discussion covers the need to derive a formula for the award of aid, and the complexity and difficulties involved in deriving any such formula. (18 references) (CLB)

Colleges and universities are generating state funding by forming or joining grassroots coalitions. Such coalitions are essential for creating the broad understanding and support necessary to achieve difficult objectives, such as raising taxes. (MLW)

A discussion of the outlook for state support of higher education in the next decade examines the major relevant trends in the recent past, sketches the outlook for state finances in general, and discusses the prospects for higher education specifically. (MSE)

Provides background on public library standards and state aid to public libraries, and reports results of a 1986 survey of Illinois public libraries which explored the relationship between state standards and the per capita grant program. The questionnaire and survey data are appended. (six references) (MES)

Using the research on effective staff development, a rural Minnesota school district developed a grass-roots professional development program which featured opening-week workshops, training programs, mini-grants, a professional library,and a school effectiveness program. (JD)

Examines supplantation and redistribution effects of lottery allocations to the 28-member Florida community college system. Florida community colleges incurred four adverse consequences from being earmarked for lottery profits. Receiving lottery profits was accompanied by a drop in college expenditures, fewer spending dollars, supplanted general…