Much more work--and better results--will be needed before Stark County's future vision for its schools and communities is realized. And Stark County's education stakeholders are committed to completing this journey. But at this critical juncture in the state of Ohio's efforts to improve the performance of its schools and the students they serve,…

California's budget crisis jeopardizes the progress made in strengthening the teaching workforce. The threat of impending teacher layoffs will weaken the teacher preparation pipeline and affect the state's ability to attract and retain thousands of teachers it can't afford to lose. If California is to remain committed to strengthening student…

Managing work and family responsibilities is particularly difficult for military families with children. While military life has always been demanding, in recent years an increasing number of military personnel in both the Active Duty Force and Selected Reserves have had to confront the additional demands of parenthood. Providing resources to…

Several years ago, the state of South Carolina turned to experts in early childhood education to address the school readiness issue for its K-2 schools. Rather than asking, "Is this child ready for school?," the state created a program assessment system that reframed the question of school readiness by asking, "Is this school ready…

Background/Context: This study examines the extent of reform in preparation programs in school leadership in six states employing a comprehensive, whole-state intervention design. Although no studies of these or other comprehensive reform designs are available, there is a rich context surrounding preparation reform work that informed our…

This case study on the impact of a state takeover in one of South Carolina's most rural school districts ("referred to as the County School District") was completed using a quasi-experimental mixed methods design to examine the impact on academic achievement, school performance, and school leadership as a result of the South Carolina…

This document analyzes legislation in 23 states enabling collective bargaining in higher education. Highlights indicate: (1) Twenty of the 23 laws were either passed or amended within the last 3 years. (2) Only five laws made special effort to identify college faculty explicitly as being covered and needing some special concern. (3) Only three…

Since states seem to see no contradiction between tightening certification requirements with one hand and issuing alternative certificates with the other, it is the responsibility of teacher educators to develop professionally defensible routes to provide needed teachers. (MT)

This report presents discussion from the 2000 Delaware Policy Forum "Planning Delaware's School Needs: Issues of Location, Design, and Infrastructure," which was held October 12, 2000, in Wyoming, Delaware. The forum brought together representatives of state agencies, including people from the Department of Transportation, the Department…

Federal welfare reform legislation will impact the entire child care system through policy ripples affecting how close market rates come to paying full cost of quality child care; funding services for all child care, including consumer education and resource and referral services; and funding the future through initiatives to build leadership and…

There has been a sharp turnaround in the passing rate of students in Dade County, Florida, on a state-mandated test required for graduation from high school. The passing rate, which rose from 59% to 66%, is attributed to a countywide push to make students aware of the test's importance and create the best test-taking conditions possible. (MLH)

The federal government has had a long-standing commitment to ensuring access of English Learner (EL) students to a meaningful education. As early as 1968, the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" ("ESEA") contained provisions for supporting the education of EL students and in its 1974 landmark decision, "Lau v.…

State policymakers are increasingly focused on closing the achievement gap and preparing all students to succeed in school and in life. However, college and career readiness begins long before students enter high school or even a classroom. Differences in children's abilities appear as early as the first year of life, and research has shown that…

For decades, experts have been thinking and writing about the need to revamp teacher pay. In recent years, the pace of reports, op-eds, expert recommendations, and task force proposals calling for change has accelerated. Yet despite the proliferating chatter, the bulk of teacher pay remains fundamentally unchanged. Each passing year of continued…

This September, Oxford University Press is publishing "Out of Range: Why the Constitution Can't End the Battle Over Guns." Written by Mark Tushnet, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, "Out of Range" explores competing interpretations of the Second Amendment and discusses how the entanglement of…