The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation of 2001 increased the stakes for all schools to increase student achievement by mandating all students meet or exceed state standards by 2014. A small rural school responded 5 years ago to their failure to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) by implementing professional learning communities (PLC) as a…

The "Annual Disability Statistics Compendium" is a publication of statistics on people with disabilities and government programs that serve the population with disabilities and is modeled after the Statistical Abstracts of the United States, published yearly by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The "Compendium" is designed to…

The federal "Promise Neighborhoods" program underscores the importance of all children and youth having "access to great schools and strong systems of family and community support that will prepare them to attain an excellent education and successfully transition to college and a career." From this perspective, this brief stresses the importance…

In 2011-2012, eight schools in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) adopted a PK-8 structure. The Office of Program Evaluation in the College of Education at the University of South Carolina is collaborating with the CMS Center for Research and Evaluation to better understand the PK-8 transition process as well as academic and behavioral…

This study examined the effect of a quasi-experimental project on fifth grade English learners' achievement in state-mandated standards-based science and English reading assessment. A total of 166 treatment students and 80 comparison students from four randomized intermediate schools participated in the current project. The intervention consisted…

After more than a decade (and four years behind schedule) Congress finally seems ready to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. For years, critics have complained that the law's focus on test scores offers far too narrow a picture for judging school quality. There is also concern that the "adequate yearly progress," or…

The authors' of the previous January 2009 report "50+1: A Federal Agenda for New York City" suggested a wide-ranging urban policy agenda for an administration that, both by political inclination and the life experiences of its leader and many top officials, promised to be more sympathetic to the needs and priorities of cities than any…

The purpose of this paper is to promote clearer understanding of the graduation-rate debate by distilling the policy developments and controversy surrounding the measurement of these rates over the last decade. The paper concludes with a discussion of the move toward a federally mandated common metric for graduation rates. The No Child Left Behind…

More than three-quarters of postsecondary institutions (79 percent) would prefer expanding the current Perkins Loan program rather than replacing it with the Direct Perkins Loan program being proposed in Congress, according to a recent survey of NASFAA-member schools. In fact, increasing unsubsidized Stafford Loan limits (80 percent) and lowering…

The importance of the federal role in the preparation of doctoral-level personnel is well acknowledged. It helps to produce future leaders in critical areas and is a key component of the nation's economic security, its prestige around the world, and its leading position in research and innovation across all areas. Through a number of agencies, the…

Between the late 1980s and early 2000s, schools, districts, states, and the federal government devoted enormous resources to the implementation of Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) models. With more than 1.6 billion federal dollars distributed through the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) project and its successor, the CSR project,…

Federal education officials will face a variety of obstacles in running a $650 million innovation fund, from an expected flood of applications and concern about favoritism in picking winners, to skepticism about the government's ability to drive innovative change in education. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education--which last month offered…

Quality physical education is recognized for its health-related benefits and should be supported as an integral component of every school's curriculum. Unfortunately, quality physical education is not easily established or maintained. Many physical education programs face challenges such as reduced staff, large class sizes, inadequate facilities…

This paper analyzes the impact of the local availability of Head Start, a public preschool program for low-income children, on the participation of immigrant children. We use propensity score methods to flexibly control for numerous individual and neighborhood characteristics and availability of other services aimed at low-income families. We find…

Evaluation researchers and practitioners acknowledge that involving stakeholders in the planning and implementation of an evaluation increases buy-in, understanding, and use. With the recent increase in multi-site evaluations of large federal programs, evaluators must think differently about how to encourage meaningful collaboration by…