This report summarizes trends and needs in higher education. The first section considers the value of higher education and provides data showing that a college education is more valuable today than ever, and that higher education is not given a high enough priority when state and national budget decisions are made. Positive changes that have been…

This brief summarizes data from a 1994-95 survey of the states on special education expenditures in the U.S. and analyzes other extant cost data that adjust for inflation and consider rising special education enrollments. The study estimates that the 1995-96 national expenditure for special education was about $32.6 billion (compared to $19.3…

Critics of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA) point to both structural and substantive failures to explain the program's ineffectiveness. Moves toward reauthorization in Congress create the opportunity to consider needed reforms. Reform options should target those students most in need, ensure effective implementation,…

Throughout Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, school systems and individual schools are experimenting with new approaches to management that seek to run schools in ways that are right for the 21st century. Those who manage these schools must take responsibility for an arduous task due to the complexity…

This article examines one of the essential functions of an urban school district: ensuring that schools have the power and resources to make good decisions. The article focuses on equitable student-based budgeting, a strategy for resource allocation. It explores the benefits and challenges of moving to student-based budgeting. The article begins…

This unit cost study of the Illinois Community College Board is an annual project involving the direct participation of all community colleges in Illinois. Each college submits data based on course offerings, enrollments, and costs to the Board staff, who in turn check the data for consistency with credit hour claims and financial reports, and…

Changes in the economy and declining profit margins are prompting many businesses to question the value of their training investments. Companies that had been operating under the assumption that they were reaping positive benefits from their training efforts are asking their human resource managers to provide proof that their training programs are…

The relationship between school system financial and demographic data and student achievement on the science subsection of the Tennessee statewide standardized test was studied to determine if systems that served large numbers of low income students had been as successful as more affluent systems in improving student achievement. System-level data…

All principal preparation and professional development programs operate within a local, state, and national policy and financing context that influences their structure, shapes their priorities, and, in some cases, dictates their existence. Financing and policy directly affect how much professional development for principals takes place, what…

The goal toward which rural education appears to be moving at the close of the biennial period 1927-28 is that of equalization of educational opportunity within each of the several states. The most significant and generally accepted means of achieving it is apparently through increasing emphasis on the promotion of centralizing and coordination…

The United States Department of Education's (Department or ED) Public Charter Schools Program (PCSP) provides support for the planning, program design, and initial implementation of charter schools; the evaluation of the effects of charter schools; and the dissemination of information about charter schools and successful practices in charter…

This is the 1934 Annual Report of the Department of the Interior, includes the annual report from the Acting Commissioner of Education. The Commissioner's portion of this report begins with two parts. Part I, the General Statement, includes: (1) Changes in the Administrative Organization (The Commissionership and Union of Two Federal Education…

This report summarizes AISD's federally-funded Title VI program activities for the 1999-2000 school year.

This report summarizes 2005-2006 school year activities at facilities for neglected youth and facilities for delinquent youth in the Austin Independent School District (AISD) attendance zones that were supported through federal Title I funds.

Data from studies of productivity and funding at colleges and universities show that teacher education is seriously underfinanced, in part because of the ways that university administrators allocate money provided under state funding formulas among their departments. Options for a more equitable distribution of funds are suggested. (PP)