The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004 established a requirement that all States develop and submit to the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) a performance plan designed to advance the State from its current level of compliance with the statutory and regulatory requirements of the law…

SREB states were among the first in the nation to set comprehensive state academic standards for K-12 schools. Setting these initial standards was only part of the job. Getting these standards right and keeping them right may be the most important task facing public education today. If state standards are too low, many public school graduates will…

In 1998, Congress reauthorized and amended the "Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA)", creating, under Title II, the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants Program for States and Partnerships. One initiative under this amendment, the partnership grants program, funded partnerships among colleges of education, schools of arts and sciences, and…

In most contemporary discussions about the achievement gap--between rich and poor students, and between Asian and white students on the one hand, and African American and Hispanic students on the other--the underlying assumption is that educational reform can eliminate it. Educational reform efforts, focused on testing and data-driven…

In September 2006, the U.S. Department of Education amended the regulations governing programs administered under Title I, Part A of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), related to both the assessment of, and State, local educational agency (LEA), and school…

The Central Region states (Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) lag behind the nation in the rate of participation in supplemental educational services that schools failing to make adequate progress for three consecutive years must offer to eligible students under the No Child Left Behind Act. This study…

This descriptive report examines the strategies of the six Southeast Region states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina) to improve high school graduation rates and student achievement and to increase the number of students leaving high school with the skills and knowledge necessary for the twenty-first…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

This article describes a multiage classroom led by three co-teachers who facilitate the education of 42 students ages six through nine years. The classroom is located in a public school district that practices inclusion and subscribes to the principles of whole schooling. A literature review defines the concepts of co-teaching, multiage education,…

The study uses Foucault's framework of governmentality to understand the impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on teachers' writing instruction and attitudes toward writing in high- and low-income schools. Using interviews and observations of 18 teachers, the study identified four themes: emphasis on testing, curricular effects, awareness of…

About a third of students entering high school do not graduate and face limited job prospects. The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to use graduation rates to measure how well students are educated. To assess the accuracy of states' rates and to review programs that may increase rates, GAO was asked to examine (1) the graduation rate…

The Archdiocese of Indianapolis has been using the Sander's value-added model to determine if they have had gains in student achievement in language arts, mathematics and reading. The article summarizes the method to make this determination and the results from three years of testing using the CTB McGraw-Hill Terre Nova test. The archdiocese has…

The current study investigates the effect of adding an individual growth measure to the primary definition of AYP. A variety of approaches to measuring growth have already been identified and are in use in schools across the country. In almost every statewide assessment system, a measure of the amount that individual students change from one year…

The latest Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, includes new standards, testing, and sanctions provisions designed to bring better performance and new accountability for that performance to local schools. The accountability ingredients in the new law were mostly not new to the 2001 debate…

Those commenting on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act find themselves at an interesting juncture. Debates over projected outcomes of the law have now begun to give way to certainty. An August 2002 piece the author edited and distributed to school administrators in Indiana, titled "The Grim Reaper," pointed out that, as it was being…