The purpose of this study is to examine resource allocation patterns and the predictive power of these resources in increasing the likelihood of four-year college enrollment among academically qualified, low-income students. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study, college choice decision-making is conceptualized in relation to an…

This issue of "The Progress of Education Reform" summarizes recent research that may challenge conventional wisdom on how and where public resources for postsecondary education should be dedicated in an effort to increase college completion rates. Questions to be examined include: (1) How did changes in enrollments and the allocation of resources…

This monograph discusses how to make England's further education (FE) system genuinely responsive to learner demand, as well as stable, affordable, and of high quality. It looks at how a demand-driven system can be organised and funded, at what is required of governments, and what can be left to learners themselves and to the education and…

The "PISA 2006 Science Literacy Assessment" results report Finland as the first ranked country out of the 30 developed nations that participated in the testing (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2007). The United States was ranked 21st. Closer examination of school and student variables may help explain these…

This essay proposes a set of non-econometric tests using data on wage structure, school resource costs, public expenditures, taxes, and rates of return to explain anomalies in which richer political units deliver less education than poorer ones. Both the anomalies of education history, and its less surprising contrasts, fit broad patterns that can…

The purpose to this study was to provide a comprehensive analysis of per pupil expenditures at a specific school site. The objectives were threefold. The first objective was to determine per pupil expenditures, the second question was to determine variations in expenditures on a per student basis and finally, the third question in the study was to…

Resources matter. How well schools and districts use their people, time, and money is often even more important than how much they receive. Education Resource Strategies' extensive research with districts and schools shows that despite differences in school level, size, location, student population, or even instructional focus, high-performing…

This overview provides a synthesis of a comprehensive survey of school finance programs in the 50 states conducted in 2006-07. Information was provided by chief state school finance officers or persons with expertise in a state's public school funding-allocation system. Brief descriptions of the major Pre-K-12 funding formulae, district-based…

This quantitative study investigated the degree to which financial resources supporting teachers was equitably distributed in Oklahoma. Teachers are an important resource and their importance is being increasingly emphasized as educators attempt to increase student achievement. Every student educated in Oklahoma should have an equal right to…

Social justice, equality and inclusion are complex and inter-linked concepts and feature prominently in Scottish social policy rhetoric. This paper begins with an overview of the discourses surrounding these concepts and the ways in which they are used in Scottish education policy, which, in general, is founded on principles of universalism. The…

Concern in the United States for adequate public school education in mathematics dates back at least to the response to Sputnik in 1957, but at that time focused on preparing a cadre of students for quantitatively demanding careers in science and engineering. More recently, however, there has been increasing appreciation of the value of broadly…

Young people who live in rural areas are less likely to finish high school and to complete college than their urban and suburban peers. These adolescents are also more likely to use drugs and alcohol: rural adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 have the highest levels of drug use in this age group. Out-of-school-time programs in rural areas…

Public higher education has relied on a variety of funding structures since the 1950s. Layzell (2007) describes five general approaches in contemporary use in the United States. "Incremental (baseline) budgeting" uses the current year budget as the base and then makes adjustments to account for expected changes in activities, revenues,…

It was heartwarming to see so many states, school districts, and communities throughout the United States open their doors to the children of Katrina. This response was a graphic portrayal of the spirit of volunteerism, the value of the more able assisting the less fortunate, and the sense of altruism that surfaces when major crises occur.…

Many previous time allocation studies treat work as a single activity and examine trade-offs between work and other activities. This paper investigates the at-work allocation of time among teaching, research, grant writing and service by science and engineering faculty at top US research universities. We focus on the relationship between tenure…