The persistence of the Great Recession provides us with the opportunity to engage in a long overdue conversation about public investments in America's children. Less than ten percent of the Fiscal Year 2010 federal budget of $3.603 trillion is allocated to children and youth. This percentage is likely to decline in the next decade if current laws…

Student performance on critical-thinking applications on standardized tests in a southwestern U.S. state has been low for several years. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore how one school district prepared students for critical-thinking applications on standardized tests. The study was informed by cognitivism and…

This study selected a purposeful sample of eight high performing southern California elementary schools which achieved API scores above 900 over a three year period. A review of instructional strategies for each study school during the improvement process and resource allocation patterns was determined. Case studies of each school include…

How government spends money, and who benefits, reveals the priorities. How, then, do children fare in the competition for public resources? While families have long been the primary caregivers of children, all levels of government--local, state, and federal--invest in the growth and development of children, whether through education, family…

"Trends in College Spending, 1998-2008: Where does the money come from? Where does it go? What does it buy?" is the third in a series of reports on college and university spending from the Delta Cost Project. The findings presented in this report concentrate on the 1998 to 2008 time period--the last academic year for which spending data are…

Remaking Adult Learning provides an exciting and innovative addition to the literature on adult learning. Charting challenges and successes in the sector, it illustrates how taking part in well-thought-out programmes can have a positive and sometimes life-saving impact on people's lives. While grounded in adult learning practice, the book draws…

This article uses data from the 2004 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study to provide insight about the range of tuition discounting practices at public institutions. Specifically, it examines the characteristics of students who receive tuition discounts from public four-year colleges and universities. A binary logistic regression is applied to…

The U.S. is largely neglecting the estimated 3 million academically gifted and talented students who represent diverse experiences, skills, ethnicity, and cultural and economic backgrounds. All of them require a responsive and challenging educational system if they are to achieve to their highest potential. According to the "State of the States"…

In Texas, Hispanic populations (people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race) have increased from 6.7 million in 2000 to 7.4 million in 2005, or by approximately 10.5%. This growth trend is expected to continue with estimates that Hispanics will represent approximately 37%…

This white paper presents a case history of the Spelman College endowment and how good financial management and alternative strategies for the growth of the endowment has made Spelman's one of the largest among U.S. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). How has Spelman College been able to grow its endowment funds to this level? A…

With heightened expectations and greater funding as backdrop, one would expect elected officials and educators to ensure that America's substantial investment in public education is used effectively to accomplish its ambitious new goals. Conventional modes of funding school improvement, however, such as across-the-board salary increases,…

School districts across the country are redesigning their portfolios of high schools to include more small high schools. Over the past three years Education Resource Strategies (ERS), with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, partnered with both schools and districts to understand spending in small high schools and document how…

Transforming an entire district from one that is satisfied with being academically good enough into one keenly focused on improved student performance requires overhaul that reaches from end to end, from building to building, from bottom to top. Leaders in Birdville Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas, learned that applying five…

A recent major trend in distance education is the emergence of K-12 virtual schools. This evaluative case study looked at the issues encountered and lessons learned by one school district during the first year of a virtual high school program. The purpose of the evaluation was to examine what happened when the school district initiated its virtual…

The balanced development of compulsory education, with a focus on the goal of educational equality, is both a matter of policy orientation and a practical educational issue. At present, people are mostly concerned with the unbalanced state of development of compulsory education, its causes, and issues regarding its administration. Various modes of…