Good fiscal news is arriving in state capitals: Tax revenues are finally starting to recover from their four-year swoon. The bad news: States face pressure to meet increasing health-care costs and to replenish rainy-day and other funds legislatures tapped in recent years. The bottom line is that schools will have to fight for significant increases…

While No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires all students to be "proficient" in math and reading by 2014, the precedent-setting 2002 federal law also allows each state to determine its own level of proficiency. It's an odd discordance at best. It has led to the bizarre situation in which some states achieve handsome proficiency results by…

Proposals to make high school more rigorous continue to surface in the states. Governors, lawmakers, and blue-ribbon panels are championing the plans, which are fueled by local and national concerns about economic competitiveness and jobs. But the agenda is growing to included calls for better middle school preparation, more flexible options for…

A 50 state look at the nation's governors and their leadership on education over the past year shows that Governors are focusing much of their attention on two critical areas of education policy--high school and preschool. At least 22 governors proposed significant policies last year aimed at improving high schools, or have made such proposals so…

Reading First, a program under the No Child Left Behind Act, is intended to bring research-based reading instruction to struggling schools through the awarding of grants. In an audit of New York's Reading First plan, investigators concluded that the state erred in awarding grants to eight districts and a charter school that did not meet the…

Purpose: This study examined federal and state civil money penalties and fines collected from nursing homes and how states used the collected funds. Design and Methods: We used a telephone survey of state officials, Freedom of Information Act requests, state Web site searches, and stakeholder interviews to describe the funds collected, the…

The organization and format of this primer which is designed for state officials differs from the other two in this series based on the recommendations of the state officials who participated in the Special Education Technical Assistance for Charter Schools (SPEDTACS) Project state team meetings convened to assist in the development of the set of…

The National Post School Outcomes Center (NPSO), in conjunction with the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE), conducted a focus group with several state directors of special education to (a) discuss the collection of their post-school outcomes data and (b) share their experiences and suggestions with other state…

This report of the U.S. Advosory Commission on International Educational and Cultural Exchange presents observations and recommendations based on interviews with officials in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, and the Soviet Union which reflected willingness of East European countries to implement international exchange provisions of the…

The pattern of Chicano political representation in the territorial and state legislatures of California, Colorado, and New Mexico was examined. (NQ)

At the present time, there is wide diversity among the 50 states with respect to state level coordinating and control agencies for junior colleges. To provide an overview of the composition of these agencies, the authors compiled summary data from 27 states having staffs that deal exclusively or primarily with the problems of coordinating and…

In this paper, a general conceptual framework for the role of consultant in the Bureau of Program Development and Diffusion as an education extension agent is presented. The key elements of the definition are (1) service, (2) local school system advocacy, and (3) developmental leadership. The operational definitions for each are viewed as…

This study attempted to identify some of the major problems that a State Education Agency (SEA) might encounter during the transition from an agency headed by an elected Chief State School Officer (CSSO) to that same agency headed by a State Board of Education (SBE) appointed CSSO. Five States--Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and West…

Describes the apparently infinite adaptability of public administrators to changes in executive priorities by examining budgeting under two successive, sharply contrasting chief executives in Delaware. (Author)

Beginning each January, governors summarize accomplishments, present challenges, and propose solutions. As one might expect, a certain amount of rhetoric accompanies the listing of accomplishments. But when that rhetoric is stripped away, patterns of gubernatorial focus can be seen. Some of these patterns might be linked to common state…