The Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) represents one of the most comprehensive pieces of educational reform legislation enacted in the United States. This article describes a series of unintended consequences that are the direct results of inconsistencies both between and within components of the reform. The inconsistencies have made certain…

Pennsylvania's House Resolution 43 of 1995 directs the Joint State Government Commission to report to the General Assembly on the feasibility of creating a voluntary residential school program for disadvantaged children. The Commission assembled a Working Group to consider this issue, and the group focused on poor children living in high crime…

In 1991, the Minnesota Legislature enacted the first legislation in the nation to permit creation of legally and financially independent public schools called charter schools. In February 1996, the Minnesota State Board of Education authorized an 18-month evaluation of Minnesota's charter schools. An evaluation team from the University of…

Guidelines are presented to ensure sex equity in the Washington state public schools. A legislative mandate requires the Superintendent of Schools to apply provisions of the sex equity statutes to any activity conducted by or on behalf of a school district. Every year, one third of the state's 296 school districts are required to complete an…

In November 1980, Massachusetts citizens voted to limit the allowable increase in local property tax revenue by supporting a state-ballot referendum named Proposition 2 1/2. This paper presents findings of a study that examined changes in both the sources and extent of funding for public education in Massachusetts communities during the first…

In 1990, the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky passed comprehensive and controversial legislation designed to change the nature of public education throughout Kentucky. Because implementation of the Kentucky Education Reform Act depends on public support at both the state and local levels, it is important to know whether support for…

In the last decades, a number of states have passed legislation identifying the conditions under which state officials can and should intervene in the operation of school districts. This paper uses a grounded qualitative approach to develop a lexicon of concepts and a framework for comparing intervention laws across states. The paper analyzes the…

Reviewing California state legislation and education code, this paper discusses the rights of community college administrators to continued employment and related obligations of college districts. Following an introduction reviewing common practices in the state regarding certificated and classified administrative positions, key elements of…

As of 1996, charter schools were just emerging in the Northwest region of the United States. This publication presents the proceedings of a symposium held to review information about charter-school policy, operations, and outcomes. A cross-section of leaders in education, government, and community from the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon,…

This report discusses the activities of Minnesota's Medical Education and Research Costs (MERC) project, which was undertaken to gather data on the costs of medical education and health care research conducted by hospitals, medical centers, and health maintenance organizations and to develop mechanisms to assess the costs across the health care…

The purpose of this study was to compare the influence of selected student characteristics on composite National Teacher Examination (NTE) scores for students taught in a traditional or modified undergraduate teacher education program. The modified professional sequence resulted from a Mississippi statewide educational reform act which requires…

This booklet presents policy positions adopted by the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District Governing Board, forming a legislative agenda for the college focused on the state issues of access, financing, economic development, and regulatory impediments; and the federal issues of financial aid, workforce development, and administrative…

This handbook was designed to serve as a resource guide for Washington State school employees. It provides a beginning framework for addressing violence in schools, districts, and communities. It outlines Washington State laws regarding school violence, suggests curriculum resources for preventing violent acts and dealing constructively with…

This report examines state-by-state child support data to determine the impact of child support legislation over the last decade. In the text portion, the report compares data provided by the states in fiscal years 1983 and 1992. It finds that while states have made some improvements over the decade, performance in many critical areas has remained…

This report contains the final recommendations of the Michigan Senate Select Committee on Higher Education on tuition policy at Michigan public colleges and universities. The report presents its findings and recommendations in three large parts. The first section contains the final recommendations of the Committee including goals of affordability…