Although there is a growing recognition that the traditional teacher salary schedule does not reward the most effective teachers, most U.S. school districts don't offer teacher incentives for improving student performance and the vast majority of teachers actually oppose such a plan. This Information Capsule reviewed recent studies conducted on…

Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator of whether or not the nation's public school system is doing what it is intended to do: enroll, engage, and educate youth to be productive members of society. Since almost 90 percent of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require some postsecondary education, having a high school diploma and the…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Education Appropriations Bill Signed into Law: U.S. Department of Education to Receive $1 Billion Increase in…

As a field, gifted education does not endorse any one approach to serving students because of the range of student abilities and resulting concomitant diverse needs. Therefore, service delivery in gifted education is still heavily teacher dependent. Yet, many of the components of Response to Intervention (RtI) are employed in gifted education,…

This report details Title III accountability policies and outcomes for K-12 English language learner (ELL) students for school year 2007/08 in the six Southeast Region states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina) under the Title III annual measurable achievement objectives (AMAO) provision of the No Child…

The state's Race to the Top (RTT) application requires changes to the state's evaluation/accountability system. It requires a teacher effectiveness measure, district effectiveness measure, leader effectiveness measure. Regarding the teacher effectiveness measure, RTT requires linking the data of individual students to individual teachers as part…

This brief summarizes the lessons learned during a February 2010 AYPF study mission to North Carolina that examined how rural education systems are providing high quality instruction and improving the readiness of young people for life beyond high school. Participants learned about how federal and state policies and funding streams affect rural…

Although the federal No Child Left Behind program judges the effectiveness of schools based on their students' achievement status, many policy analysts argue that schools should be measured, instead, by their students' achievement growth. Using a 10-year student-level panel data set from North Carolina, we examine how school-specific pressure…

This is the third of three studies of copyright and sound recordings commissioned by the National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) in support of the congressionally mandated study of the state of audio preservation in the United States. All three studies have focused on how laws pertaining to sound recordings made before 1972 affect…

This study uses the best available national data to project future supply and demand for occupations associated with the energy industry for each Appalachian state, and the number of people enrolled in and graduating from programs in the Region's institutions of higher education that will be available to meet or exceed the demand. The report…

Student discipline is an ongoing challenge for school administrators, and its importance has been magnified as accountability reporting and public concerns for school safety have come into play. School personnel are expected to maintain a safe school environment that focuses on student learning. Disciplinary interventions should be…

"Education Matters" is the monthly newsletter of the Association of American Educators (AAE), an organization dedicated to advancing the American teaching profession through personal growth, professional development, teacher advocacy and protection. This issue of the newsletter includes: (1) The War on Progress: Why the National…

North Carolina Family Impact Seminars (NCFIS) include annual seminars, briefing reports and follow-up activities designed specifically for state policymakers, including legislators and legislative staff, the governor and executive branch staff, and state agency representatives. The Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University convenes the…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires states to monitor student and school performance based on "adequate yearly progress" (AYP), which essentially is a count of the number of students meeting a specified target. States, many of which have a growing number of schools and school districts entering NCLB's "needs…

Parent involvement is widely acknowledged as a central component in both overall school success and the academic success of individual children. Recognizing this, the federal No Child Left Behind Act mandates that states, districts and schools make extraordinary efforts to enhance effective parent involvement. Now, more than six years after the…