Each year, the Maine Education Policy Research Institute conducts policy research in select topic areas for the Maine Legislature's Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs. Ideas for studies are proposed in winter by a steering committee of education stakeholders, and final selections are made in late spring by the legislators. The issues that…

Elective home education (EHE) is a legal alternative to school in England but the statutory requirements for provision are remarkably vague. This book explores the use of EHE by Gypsy and Traveller families. The accounts of their experiences and their views about education spaces reveal the racism and discrimination their children encounter in…

Students, parents, and teachers of today should know full well that even a whole phalanx of educational reforms does not automatically prevail over the social bigotries that persist from the past. This paper provides an uncomfortable reminder of how the democratic purposes of U.S. education must be sustained not only by court decisions and…

Education serves as a backdrop and a disguise, masking the transformation of this country from an industrialized blue-collar dependent system to a technocratic system dependent upon fewer, but highly educated workers. This movement has tremendous implications for race relations in this country. An in-depth study of the history of school reform…

Two overlapping nationwide studies, one funded by the Ford Foundation and the other by the U.S. Department of Education, provide information covering policies, procedures, and practices that enhance or impede the academic success of minority students in universities and community colleges. Topics include understanding the problem of minority…

This updated version of a 1989 document of the same title represents a guide to the immigrant student's legal right of access to public schools based on the 1982 United States Supreme Court ruling in "Plyler v. Doe." Following an introduction, the first of three sections, "School Practices," addresses everyday school practices…