This issue of "Legislative Review" takes a look at the news in higher education from January 19 to 23, 2009. This Legislative Review reports that: (1) HB 1121, a bill that would provide, among other things, a one-time, 2 percent increase in employer contributions to retiree benefits, was heard in the House Government and Veterans Affairs…

Connecticut's Alternate Route to Certification Program--ARC, as it is commonly known--prepares talented, well-educated adults to become certified as teachers in Connecticut's public schools. ARC was created in 1986 by the Connecticut state legislature to encourage mid-career adults with strong subject area backgrounds to become teachers. Today ARC…

This report seeks to describe how New Jersey became a national leader in early education and PreK-3rd, identify its successes and challenges, draw lessons from its experience for policymakers in other states and nationally, and provide recommendations for New Jersey policymakers to translate progress to date into sustained, large scale learning…

With plans for a sweeping federal immigration bill stuck in Congress, Arizona and a growing number of states have decided to try to deal with the in-state-tuition issue themselves. This spring lawmakers in at least 22 states have already considered or are debating legislation concerning in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. In about half of…

Due to improper contact between agents and players as well as agent infractions that have occurred and hit universities, states and colleges are increasingly turning to the courts to help protect the integrity of big-time college athletics. Universities such as Oregon now hold "agent days" to educate players about appropriate conduct. States are…

This study considers why Florida has been the most aggressive state in adopting school vouchers. Vouchers are consistent with Florida's tradition of aggressive educational accountability policies, arising from the state's moderate social conservatism, openness to privatization, and state demographic characteristics. Even with this fertile…

A content analysis of charter school movements was conducted in order to gain insight on their substantive contents as well as to discern any explicit or implicit ideological underpinnings. Charter agreements in Indiana were obtained over a three year period of time, shortly after the Indiana General Assembly sanctioned the creation of charter…

Throughout much of the world higher education has been subject to scrutiny, including for example cost, outcomes, stakeholder value, and change. The intensity of the scrutiny and the possible consequences in terms of change have accelerated as a result of 2009 being the year of financial turbulence and scarce resources being used to prop up…

This paper presents a case study of the origins, politics, and preliminary outcomes of Virginia's "restructured" relationship between public colleges and universities and the Commonwealth. The initially proposed "charter" status for the state's three historically important universities became the vehicle for a reform that…

In this article, the authors provide a description of the academic climate in New Mexico. Like many other places in the world today, New Mexico is trying to find an identity in an environment that the authors label "increasingly privatized, corporatized, and militarized." New Mexico's higher education salaries are lower than those in…

Rising juvenile crime rates during the 1970s and 1980s spurred state legislatures across the country to exclude or transfer a significant share of offenders under the age of eighteen to the jurisdiction of the criminal court, essentially redrawing the boundary between the juvenile and adult justice systems. Jeffrey Fagan examines the legal…

Although some writers have suggested that the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), contrary to its intent, was responsible for a decline in employment for persons with disabilities, there is little strong empirical support for such an assertion. This study is an attempt to demonstrate that, in fact, the dismal labor market experience following…

Section 1008.30 (formerly 240.117), Florida Statutes, requires the State Board of Education to develop and implement a common placement testing program to assess the basic computation and communication skills of students who intend to enter a degree program at any public community college or state university. Every year the State provides reports…

In 2011, the Campaign for Educational Equity established the Safeguarding Sound Basic Education Project. One of the major components of this project has been to gather and analyze data about the availability of resources and services in high-needs schools both in New York City and around the state. A number of groups have issued statistical…

The Federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA), Title II: Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) provides funding for states and territories to provide instruction in English as a Second Language (ESL), Adult Basic Education (ABE), and Adult Secondary Education (ASE) to adults in need of these literacy services. California State Budget Act…