"The Intelligent Donor's Guide to College Giving" is a signature ACTA publication designed to help higher education donors navigate the giving process. This third edition features stories behind gifts that are bringing intellectual diversity and academic rigor to campuses across the country as well as lessons from controversies over past…

Our current conceptions of educational adequacy emerged out of an era dominated by equity-based school resource litigation. During that time of transitioning between successful litigation strategies, legal opinions provided clues as to how future courts might view a norm-referenced approach to establishing an adequacy standard--an approach that…

For all the national and even international debate about the state of American education, public schooling in the U.S. is still a local matter--and the school district remains its hub. As administrators know, there's nothing abstract about the process of getting millions of students into their seats, assuring they receive the instruction they're…

Persistently low-achieving public schools around the country have received $5.8 billion from the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, in addition to districts and state funds, and other supplementary federal funds. Despite all of these sources of funding, most of the schools receiving them have failed to make a dramatic difference in…

Background/Context: Over the past half-century, the courts have played an increasingly important role in educational governance and decision-making. However, since the courts began to take such an active role in education, the efficacy and effectiveness of judicial intervention in education remain uncertain. Largely in response to problems that…

The New Jersey Coastal Communiversity, led by Brookdale Community College, is a partnership of colleges and universities that provides local access to postassociate degree education. In operation for six years, the partnership exemplifies the strength of a collaborative model of higher education institutions to address statewide needs. Alan…

Higher education in New Jersey has arrived at a decisive moment. After twenty years of declining State funding and increased tuitions, the fortunes of citizens and the state hang in the balance. Student access to an affordable college education and the economic prosperity of the state are at stake. Increased funding is essential, but so too are…

Gaps in early learning are starkly apparent among differing children even before they enter kindergarten. So, a rising number of states are trying to narrow initial achievement disparities by expanding access to quality preschool. At the same time, recent findings show that preschool is not a lasting inoculation: its benefits fade if children move…

This study assessed how New Jersey's state accountability system encouraged or thwarted charter school success, how effectively performance standards were defined and enacted by authorizing agents, and how individual charter schools were developing accountability processes that made them more or less successful than their charter school…

The purpose of this module cluster is to develop or increase the preservice teacher's awareness of important issues in education in the state of New Jersey and Camden City and various nationwide issues in addition. The cluster contains five modules concerned with (1) control and financing of education; (2) future control and financing of education…

Documents and analyzes changes in the structure of educational governance in New Jersey, suggesting that these changes are indicative of general changes in the process of resolving conflict on education issues in other states. (Author/IRT)

In the past two years, 26 states have established task forces to study issues of quality, mission, efficiency, governance, access, and financial support and arrive at some new solutions. What separate these initiatives from previous ones are their magnitude and scope and the resources used. (MSE)

The objectives of this study of the county colleges in New Jersey were to: (1) examine their mission, governance, and financing; (2) determine whether philosophies and operating mechanisms of a period of expansion would provide sufficient support and direction for the future; and (3) make recommendations based upon the study. In addition to…

Surveys, interviews, and literature reviews were conducted to provide data upon which the Commission to Study the Mission, Financing, and Governance of the County Colleges in New Jersey could base its recommendations. The following areas were investigated: (1) composition of the trustee boards of the colleges and effective methods of selecting…

Drawing from visits to all 19 two-year colleges in New Jersey and meetings with trustees, faculty, administrators, students, and other interested citizens, this report presents a series of recommendations for ensuring the future health and vitality of the state's county community colleges. First, introductory information is presented on the…