This policy brief revisits the long and storied literature on whether money matters in providing a quality education. Increasingly, political rhetoric adheres to the unfounded certainty that money doesn't make a difference in education, and that reduced funding is unlikely to harm educational quality. Such proclamations have even been used to…

In 2002/03, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools initiated a broad program of accelerating entry into algebra coursework. The proportion of moderately-performing students taking 8th grade algebra increased from less than half to nearly 90%, then reverted to baseline levels, in the span of just six age cohorts. We use this policy-induced variation to…

Results from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have shown that the degree to which education systems succeed in equipping students with important foundation skills varies significantly. Since the quality of teaching is at the heart of student learning…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) targeted substantial School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to the nation's "persistently lowest achieving" public schools (i.e., up to $2 million per school annually over 3 years) but required schools accepting these awards to implement a federally prescribed school-reform model.…

Redistributing highly effective teachers from low- to high-need schools is an education policy tool that is at the center of several major current policy initiatives. The underlying assumption is that teacher productivity is portable across different schools settings. Using elementary and secondary school data from North Carolina and Florida, this…

Every 20 minutes, another child is diagnosed with autism. Are you ready to meet this growing educational challenge? This authoritative guide for practitioners--early interventionists, teachers, school counselors and psychologists--provides practical strategies for addressing the unique needs of children on the autism spectrum and their families.…

In September 2011, the Obama Administration invited states to apply for waivers of key requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The Administration's waiver initiative offers states the flexibility to move away from the flawed provisions of NCLB, including several…

This mixed-methods study is represented by three articles that examine student achievement. The articles were developed based on the following purposes: (1) to examine teachers' conceptions about student achievement; (2) to examine teacher practices for school improvement that reflects elements of a reform model; and (3) to examine teachers'…

Education in design shares with other disciplines a number of perennial challenges, including the need to transfer human culture, the choice of what parts of human culture to transfer and the decision as to what approaches work best in accomplishing that transfer. Design education also faces particular challenges, which are shared with only a few…

This article examines minority teacher recruitment policies and programs of the past two decades and explores their influence on the racial/ethnic makeup of the teaching force in elementary and secondary public schools. The results show that while important progress has been made toward increasing the overall number and proportion of minority…

Education institutions around the world have seen rapid advances in ICT (Information Communication Technology) within the classroom since the mid 90's. Kuwait has realized the need for a high quality education system, and has seen huge increases in government funding for schools over the last 10 years. However, Kuwait's spending on technology and…

This is the final report in a five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). This report features analyses of student achievement growth four years after the authors carefully assembled longitudinal study panels of MPCP and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) students in 2006-07. The MPCP, which began in 1990, provides…

In this study, the authors examined the relationship between the various NSSE (National Survey of Student Engagement) survey items or classifications and the ETS Major Field Test (MFT) in Business. The sample consisted of 87 business students at a small liberal arts college. Many of the survey items were linked positively to the ETS Major Field…

Academic program life cycle concept states each program's life flows through several stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. A mixed-influence diffusion growth model is fitted to enrolment data on academic programs to analyze the factors determining progress of academic programs through their life cycles. The regression analysis yield…

A Numeracy Strategy was trialled in 30 at-risk schools in Fiji. A Training Needs Analysis and a review of the Fiji Islands Literacy and Numeracy Assessment helped decide on the focus of the trial. Teachers were introduced to Classroom Based Assessment and child centred pedagogy, which they used over a four-week period. Students showed considerable…