No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act have made accountability central to conversations about education policy. But neither statute articulates a clear vision of what constitutes "quality" or "equity" in education, nor do they include a mechanism to ensure that schools have sufficient resources to pursue that…

In "Vergara v. California" (2014), a trial-level court ruled that California laws governing teacher tenure and dismissal were unconstitutional. This study analyzes "Vergara" in light of the shifting use of the courts to promote equal educational opportunities and the changing power bases of educational interest groups,…

Similar to Dickens's "Tale of Two Cities", this research study is about a tale of two schools. The first type of school is a dysfunctional school. Dysfunctional schools are schools in a state of chaos (Shipengrower & Conway, 1998). The second school is that of order. The researchers refer to this school as a functional school. In…

Adequate funding for the nation's schools to meet the call for higher student achievement has been a litigious issue. Spending on schools is a political choice. The choices made by state legislatures, in some cases, have failed to fund schools adequately and have incited school finance lawsuits in almost all states. These proceedings are generally…

It's a familiar refrain in American education: African-American children score lower on standardized tests, graduate high school at lower rates, and are considerably more likely to be suspended or expelled than the general population. Two recent reports, one from the Council of the Great City Schools and one from the American Institutes for…

No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) encourages New Jersey and other states to use their expanded roles in narrow ways. NCLB identifies state takeovers as one potential sanction for schools that fail to reach their adequate yearly progress (AYP) targets for five consecutive years.

A decades-long school funding revolution continues in the United States. The litigation sparked by the Supreme Court of California's 1971 decision in "Serrano v. Priest" continues to reshape the legal, political, and educational landscape in the United States, affecting the lives of children, parents, educators, and taxpayers throughout…

"Quality Counts 2005" focuses on the burgeoning efforts to link funding to educational outcomes. This special issue of "Education Week" includes the following articles: (1) Financial Evolution (Lynn Olson); (2) Making Every Dollar Count (Robert C. Johnston); (3) Weighty Decisions (Jeff Archer); (4) Salary Adjustments (Melissa…