Government scrutiny and intensified oversight have dramatically changed the landscape of education in recent years. Observers want to know how schools compare, which district is best, which states are spending the most per student on education, whether reforms are making a difference, and why so many students are failing. Some of these questions…

The word "data" connotes math, science, and technology: digits and quantifiable units. Data imply objectification--reducing ideas, and perhaps even students and teachers, to products that can be measured and compared. Ironically, however, this conception of data is itself reductive, and it minimizes the richness and potential of data.…

Education management organizations, or EMOs, emerged in the early 1990s in the context of widespread interest in so-called market-based school reform proposals. Wall Street analysts coined the term EMO as an analogue to health maintenance organizations (HMOs). Proponents of EMOs claim that they bring a much needed dose of entrepreneurial spirit…

In 2007, under the leadership of Superintendent Walter Rulffes and the Clark County Education Association (CCEA), the Clark County School District (CCSD) conducted a web-based survey of all school-based licensed educators in which they were asked to share their perceptions of the state of teaching and learning conditions in the district. It was…

This paper provides an overview of U.S. Department of Education programs authorized and funded under federal law. It includes information as well on the laboratories, centers, and other facilities funded by the Department that provide important resources for education. Each entry, which gives a brief overview of a program or resource, is listed…