Although endowments at two-year colleges cannot compare to similar funding at a typical powerhouse university, community college endowments have grown an average of 76 percent over the past 20 years, according to the Center for Community College Advancement at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Foundation creation among…

Equity and access to advanced learning opportunities have been issues of concern for educators in the field of gifted education for decades. Gifted programs are noted as some of the most segregated learning environments in schools today. This study was designed to investigate how school districts have addressed educational equity through the…

This article outlines the efforts toward racial equity undertaken at the system level in Basic Education for Adults (BEdA) programs in Washington state. These Title II Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) programs include both adult basic education and English language acquisition (ABE/ELA) students. The work focuses on the alignment of…

Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos wants to privatize American education using charter schools, vouchers, tax credit scholarships, education savings accounts, and portable federal funds. Court and legislative decisions are facilitating these ends. Understanding the school choice agenda and its fiscal, academic, and legal aspects can help…

The research described in this paper expands on attempts to conceptualize, measure, and evaluate the degree to which states have aligned their finance systems with their respective accountability policies. State education finance and accountability policies serve as levers to provide equal educational opportunities for all students--scholars have…

Objective: Performance funding (PF) policies allocate a portion of state funding to colleges based on student outcomes. This study is the first to account for policy type and design differences, and explores the impact of performance funding on three levels of credential completions: short-term certificates, medium-term certificates, and…

Ohio's decision to let community colleges award four-year degrees is part of a growing national trend. When this article went to press, more than 90 community colleges across 19 states offered active four-year degree programs. Counting New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, which technically is a community college, but offers degrees as high…

Declining government funding for higher education requires colleges and universities to seek alternative revenue streams, including through philanthropic fund-raising. Extension-based subject matter centers and other programs can benefit from the thoughtful supplementation of traditional revenue sources with individual, corporate, and private…

Performance-based funding (PBF) for public colleges and universities is increasingly prevalent worldwide, as a part of a broader pattern of marketisation in public education. This study focused on developing an empirical view of how, and in what contexts, policy makers use the concepts of neoliberal economics to design and support PerformanceBased…

Objective: With both policy pressures from state governments, including states' funding behaviors, and the logic of the institution deeply ingrained over decades, community colleges face considerable challenge in reconciling conflicting values and requirements. Yet, as organizations they adapt to survive, and outcomes of adaptation may lead to an…

Performance-based funding (PBF) in higher education has grown in recent years as a means of institutional accountability and incentive for improving student success. Although most states have successfully implemented their respective systems, research on early funding models suggests a difficult fiscal environment can introduce tension between…

Higher education affordability is a complex concept that reflects resources available from multiple parties, the remaining cost of education, and the ability of students and families to pay the balance. States play a key role in determining the affordability of higher education for students attending public institutions. Yet decisions are made…

English learners (ELs) make up 10% of the U.S. student population and are increasingly enrolling in school districts that have little experience with educating these students. A majority of states report shortages in teachers prepared to work with ELs, particularly in the area of bilingual education. Grow Your Own (GYO) programs that recruit and…

This study used historical data to find associations between changes in policies, funding, and accountability stemming from No Child Left Behind and the provision of services offered to students identified as gifted in the state of Washington. Descriptive statistics and a regression model are used to examine the change in gifted programs by school…

In this article, the author explores the steep budget cuts in recent years, and how this has affected the number of honors students that can be served at community colleges in the United States. This was true in Spokane, Washington, where, prior to working with "American Honors," community colleges had struggled for many years to provide…