The adoption of state-funded merit-based aid programs has become increasingly popular among policy-makers, particularly in the southeastern part of the United States. One of the primary rationales of state-funded merit-based aid is to provide scholarships to the best and brightest students as a means to retain high quality human capital in the…

End-of instruction (EOI) examinations are used in several states for high school students as a determining factor for graduation and the receipt of a high school diploma. Given that the EOI examinations have become a gateway to a high school diploma, it is important to understand how demographic distributions are related to examination…

In April 2000 the state of North Carolina announced an increase in the minimum number of math courses students would need to take to be considered for admission as undergraduates to any of the University of North Carolina's 15 four-year branch campuses. Previously, students had been required to take at least three math courses in high school to be…

In this report, State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA) builds upon the research and recommendations from prior publications with a focus on the role of state leadership in supporting districts and schools to increase high-speed connectivity and access for students and educators. SETDA firmly believes that high-speed broadband…

The Elementary and Secondary Schools Education Act (ESEA) was finally reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The reauthorization was long overdue and with its passage comes much hype and some misinformation about what the law permits and does not permit. The purpose of this brief is to outline some of the key accountability…

The realm of environmental education has generally lacked scholarly research tied to policy and collective-action strategies. This study examines the state- and federal-level roles in states' Environmental Literacy Plan (ELP) development and implementation by examining policy entrepreneur's actions using Paul Manna's Borrowing Strength Model…

On November 8, 2016, California voters decided to end an 18-year period of restrictive language policy. Reflecting a dramatic shift in the statewide consensus around bilingual education, a supermajority of the state's voters (78%) approved Proposition 58, the "Multilingual Education" initiative, which repealed key sections of a 1998 law…

Children have increasing access, and at younger ages, to ICT. This results from state policy measures, or from families having progressively provided ICT access to their children, or both of these influences. As a critical approach to the impact of technology in the construction of social change, this paper seeks to understand how children's…

This article reports an analysis of RTI information provided on the websites of all 50 State Departments of Education, based on the assumption that school districts rely on this information when developing their RTI programs. Our analysis revealed little consistency in (a) the methods used to identify students to be served in RTI interventions,…

Emboldened by the provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, state and local education leaders are increasingly interested in redesigning their systems of assessment to further align with college and career readiness and to support meaningful learning for all students. This paper presents stories from three states undertaking this work:…

Emboldened by the provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act, state and local education leaders are increasingly interested in redesigning their systems of assessment to further align with college and career readiness and to support meaningful learning for all students. This paper presents stories from three states undertaking this work:…

In the first of this four-part series of policy briefs on student data in California, we noted a disconnect in the views of state policy staff and local educators on the need for a statewide longitudinal student data system (see "About This Series"). The local educators we interviewed expressed a readiness to participate in a state data…

Community colleges are a valuable and important commodity in the education system in the United States. As of 2015, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) reports that there are 1,123 active community colleges, with 28 community colleges in the state of Michigan. The AACC further reports a headcount of 12.4 million students based on…

Milwaukee's system of K-12 public education is distinct from many other urban school systems in the degree of educational choices offered to students and their families. This range of options has fostered intense competition among Milwaukee's K-12 schools over the past decade. While enrollment in traditional Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) has…

In recent years, competition for K-12 enrollment in Wisconsin among traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools using the state's voucher programs has intensified. Because elementary and secondary education finance in the state primarily is driven by enrollment, this has presented increasingly difficult fiscal conditions for…