The goal of Education for All (EFA) is in jeopardy, and the cause is widely perceived to be a lack of political will. But we lack an accurate definition of political will. In this article, I offer a definition that determines beforehand whether a government will have political will. In contrast to current academic work and popular discourse, which…

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. Specifically, it prohibits a school from disclosing personally identifiable information from students' education records without the consent of a parent or eligible student, unless an exception to FERPA's general consent…

SREB's "High Schools That Work" (HSTW) school improvement program is nationally recognized for its effectiveness in helping schools improve the achievement of all students. HSTW partners with state and district agencies to raise achievement in more than 1,200 high schools in 31 states, including all 16 HREB states. This brief brochure outlines the…

The Center for Law and Education (CLE), a national advocacy organization with offices in Boston and Washington, D.C., strives to assist low-income students, parents, and advocates improve their public schools and work with their communities to fulfill every student's right to a high-quality education. In Massachusetts, CLE provides legal support…

This report details the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights' (OCRs') accomplishments in enforcing the civil rights laws under which OCR has been granted jurisdiction to address and remedy discrimination. These enforcement efforts include complaint investigation and resolution, compliance reviews and technical assistance, as well…

The California State Library is charged with performing the following activities as defined by law. The State Library, under the direction and control of the State Librarian, an appointee of the Governor, has responsibility: (1) To collect, preserve, generate and disseminate a wide array of information; (2) To serve as the central reference and…

Early childhood programs are growing increasingly concerned about the number of preschoolers exhibiting challenging behavior. This case study describes how educators at the Visiting Nurses Association Child Care and Family Resource Center program addressed this concern by implementing the systems, data, and practices of Program-Wide Positive…

As the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation chronicled in its last year's Fordham Sponsorship Accountability Report, "Seeking Quality in the Face of Adversity", the 2008-09 school year was a brutal one during which schools, and their peers, faced many existential threats. The 2009-10 school year was Fordham's fifth year as a charter school…

As of August 2010, a total of 33 states, school districts, charter school coalitions, and other education organizations had received Teacher Incentive Funds (TIF) to redesign compensation programs for teachers and principals. The U.S. Department of Education named a new cohort of TIF grantees on September 23, 2010. TIF grantees have faced a number…

Across the country, state planners and stakeholders continue to be challenged with ensuring a stable and adequate financing foundation for their Part C early intervention system. Increased enrollment (excluding children at risk) from 2001 to 2004 has been documented for all but nine states and one Territory. Further, the challenges that states…

During much of the previous nine years, Tom Carroll had overseen the launch of eight charter schools in Albany. All of Tom Carroll's Albany charter schools made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). Not only that, they had become the best schools in the city. Tom Carroll now runs the Foundation for Education Reform & Accountability (FERA), which…

The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) is the national indicator of customer evaluations of the quality of goods and services available to U.S. residents. Since 1994, it has served as a uniform, cross-industry/government measure of customer satisfaction. A total of 10 groups, composed of eight program offices, EDFacts Coordinators, and…

The nonprofit organization One Laptop per Child (OLPC) has a mission that is easy to articulate but very challenging to achieve: Provide laptop computers to the almost 2 billion children who live in parts of the world where poverty and the lack of a structured educational system deprive them of an adequate education. To further complicate the…

Learning is valuable, but in Africa it is more than that: It is prohibitively expensive. In Ethiopia, where the per-capita income is about $100 a year, a single textbook at Addis Ababa University can cost $50. To get more textbooks to students in developing nations, two people are leading an ambitious project to produce and freely distribute 1,000…

This report was prepared by the National Child Care Information and Technical Assistance Center (NCCIC) in partnership with staff from the Child Care Bureau. NCCIC compiled data reported in approved CCDF Plans and relevant attachments submitted by Lead Agencies for a selected number of questions. The information presented reflects some of the…