Popular and academic common senses turn to education as the great equalizer in American life, a seemingly obvious pathway to creating a more just world. Education, which means not only a degree, but the social relations created through affiliation with formal study, is cherished as the pathway to secure a more just society. Yet the educational…

Can an academic institution be truly free if it relies on government funding? Federal dollars mean federal mandates, and those mandates grow increasingly draconian. More and more, they stifle debate on open questions, demand denial of verifiable scientific truths, eliminate due process for students accused of misdeeds by other students, or insist…

Claiming that free speech is dying on American campuses, a conservative think tank has led an effort to push states to adopt a model bill that, in the name of defending campus free speech, risks undermining it. This report seeks to understand the context and content of the "campus free-speech" movement, to track its influence within…

There are over 32 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and of this population, over 1.5 million are children (Palmer & Davidson, 2011). These children grow up in the US, achieve primary and secondary education, and when they are ready to pursue postsecondary education, it becomes harder for them to achieve. In this paper,…

Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) have wrangled with state governmental agencies for decades about the role the government should assume in overseeing campus operations. IHEs continue to argue that government intrusion impedes efficient IHE operation. Government agencies counter that IHEs are provided tax dollars to complete the job of…

On February 24, 2017, all of the authors of the state-of-the-state manuscripts published in the "Journal of Education Finance" met in Cincinnati, Ohio, to participate in a roundtable discussion focused on recent legislative actions in 38 states. A majority of those papers were revised to reflect a final report on legislative actions…

Controversy surrounding sex discrimination and sexual misconduct in higher education has existed now for over 50 years. Title IX is the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools receiving federal funds. This Report examines the evolving understanding of sex discrimination in higher education over the years, as well as the mechanisms that…

The Covid-19 pandemic has vividly illustrated the centrality of frontline workers to the everyday functioning of the American economy and daily life. But while some articles have mentioned the high proportion of immigrant workers in these roles, there has been much less attention paid to the high number of English learners in particular. The…

A recent survey of 41 different state boards of education revealed that officials from 28 states indicate that they are experiencing teacher shortages. The shortages in some states are significant. While the teacher shortage in many states is tied to different factors, one frequently cited reason for leaving the teaching profession is low pay.…

School administrators are responsible for ensuring state and federal special education laws and regulations are being implemented properly. This study examined the amount of training a Virginia school principal receives while attending principal preparation programs as well as professional development offered by their school division on how to…

States invest heavily in education, providing funding either directly or in the form of financial aid from preschool through college, with positive outcomes from those impacting nearly every other area of public policy, particularly the workforce. To understand and assess results, states collect and analyze information about these investments at…

Much of what has been written about local, state, and national approaches related to the desegregation of public schools focuses on administrative concerns, policy debates, and other issues faced by schools, yet there are still many stories of initiatives designed to facilitate school integration in the twentieth century to be told. The lives, the…

Presenters at the State of the States Roundtable session at the 2014 National Education Finance Conference in Louisville were invited to submit their papers for publication. These papers address the following topics: (1) State issues affecting P-12 and/or higher education funding; (2) Funding priorities/trends for P-12 and/or higher education; (3)…

"Guns on Campus: The Architecture and Momentum of State Policy Action" offers a detailed summary of state legislative action and higher education system policy decisions that have occurred in two specific categories: (1) States that have permitted or are seeking to permit guns on campus; and (2) States that have prohibited or are seeking…

U.S. public university system policies were examined to learn how credit hours were determined for asynchronous online education. Findings indicated that (a) credit hour meaning and use are not consistent, (b) primary responsibility for credit hour decisions was at the local level, and (c) no policies exist to guide credit hour application for…