The ability to transfer from community college to university is vital in California, where access to public universities is limited to the top one-third of high school graduates and all others have access to baccalaureate education through the California Community Colleges (CCC). Yet a complex transfer process has led to low transfer rates and…

Each year, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) publishes the "State Teacher Policy Yearbook," a comprehensive examination of the state laws, rules and regulations that govern the teaching profession, measured against a realistic set of reform goals. For five years running, the full "Yearbook" compendium…

This issue of "Legislative Review" takes a look at the news in higher education from April 1 to 8, 2011. This Legislative Review reports that: (1) HCR 3046 failed in the Senate April 6 on a vote of 7-40 after a 0-7 "do not pass" recommendation by Senate Education April 5; (2) Senate Appropriations amended and approved HB 1003,…

This research examined postsecondary policy in Louisiana, which utilizes performance incentives, in order to: (a) provide clear distinctions among three commonly used types of performance incentives, and (b) use performance indicators defined in the LA GRAD Act to determine if Louisiana policy is primarily faculty oriented, state oriented, or…

Driven by research that evidences the direct impact of principals on school-wide improvements, Illinois has been working at the forefront of innovation and improvement in principal quality for quite some time. A large body of research supports the impact of school leadership on school and student outcomes. While high quality instruction is…

The author reports on the issue of bullying that rose on state legislative agendas this year, with 21 states passing anti-bullying laws--some of which expanded schools' responsibilities to keep a check on any harassment that goes on among students. States set out to write clear definitions of bullying and to regulate school policies and…

Delegation of nursing procedures and medication in school is fraught with legal and ethical concerns for the school nurse. Because nurses may be responsible for coordinating care for several school buildings, delegation of nursing care and medication administration has occurred out of necessity. Nurse Practice Acts in some states, but not all,…

This research examined the functions and roles of public library systems in New York State and the services they provide for individual libraries and the public. The dissertation further studied the service decision-making processes at three selected New York State cooperative public library systems. Public library systems have played an important…

In 1999 the state of Montana included in its educational legal code a requirement that all Montanans learn about Montana's indigenous populations and that such knowledge be transmitted in a culturally sensitive manner. This law, called Indian Education for All (IEFA), has created challenges and rewards for educators. To learn to implement the law,…

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 examines the redesign of two educational leadership programs at different institutions: a medium-sized public university and a small private university. Both were committed to principals of ethical leadership. Each program faced a state mandate to redesign. In one case, state policy focused on detailed accountability measures based on…

Recent efforts to change the teaching profession and teacher preparation include a number of innovations to use portfolio assessment, value added measures (VAM), accountability metrics and other corporate education reform ideas. These approaches may provoke considerable potential legal consequences. Traditional constitutional and civil rights…

Over the past 100 years, a number of societal trends have influenced how Cooperative Extension engages public audiences in its outreach and education efforts. These trends include rapid evolution in communication technology, greater specialization of Land-Grant University faculty, and diversification of funding sources. In response, Extension…

As a result of the Great Recession of 2007-2009, most states experienced declines in employment, consumer spending, and economic productivity (Alm, Buschman, and Sjoquist 2011). In turn, these events led to historic declines in state tax revenues (Mikesell and Mullins 2010; Boyd and Dadayan 2009), resulting in major cuts in public spending. Local…

In this discussion, I explore the unfolding effects of Arizona's anti-bilingual education law (Proposition 203) on schools with predominant language-minority student populations. Instead of facilitating academic progress, policies like Proposition 203 impede teachers from "scaffolding" (Long & Adamson, 2012, p. 39) their students'…