Over the last few years, almost all local education boards in Japan have redesigned their teacher evaluation methods. Consequently, questions then arise as to whether the new policies and practices are control measures for teachers' performance and competence or do they represent an opportunity for authentic professional development? With this in…

With the assistance of the Lumina Foundation, the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) staff has been working to develop a broad, up-to-date database of policy relevant information for the states and to create analytical studies to help state leaders identify priorities and practices for improving policies and performance across the…

Teachers unions are among the most powerful, yet least studied, actors in public education today. Although public attention focuses on the influence of national unions, the policies that most affect teachers and schooling are bargained by local unions and school boards. Interviews with 30 recently elected local union presidents reveal that these…

According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), once students with disabilities receive educational placements, school officials cannot unilaterally change their settings. When officials wish to change the placements of students with disabilities for any reason, they must not only notify their parents of their intent to do so…

This article revisits the first "Successful Challenge of Eliminating the Required High School Reading of A Racist Novel" and then directs the discussion to this second article because the same novel had crept back into the school system eleven years later. Sample letters and correspondence to school board administrators are provided in addition to…

Over the past 30 years, states have assumed a greater role in financing education. The presumption of local control has been superseded by systems of state control. This shift in authority raises several critical questions. Chief among them is, "What effect has centralization of education financing had on the capacity of school districts to…

In 1990, Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act as a comprehensive mandate to eliminate discrimination against individuals with disabilities. The ADA's primary intent was to extend the protection of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The major difference between the two laws is that Section 504 applies to programs that…

This report presents findings on the numbers and types of public elementary and secondary local education agencies (LEAs) in the United States and other jurisdictions in the 2008-09 school year, using data from the Local Education Agency Universe Survey of the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system. The CCD is an annual collection of data that…

This article examines the failure of school districts to distribute nonmoney resources--controlled primarily by the board of education--equally among students in affluent neighborhoods versus low-income areas. It is largely an urban phenomenon, although some county-wide and large suburban school systems display similar patterns. Such practices…

This report serves as a quick reference guide for elected officials to compare key education policies and data in their states to the rest of the nation. The first section highlights major state policies for all 50 states in both table and chart formats (see Summary Charts ). The second section provides key state data, such as per-student spending…

The Federal District Court decision in "Kitzmiller v. Dover" halted a school board's attempts to introduce an "intelligent design" account of human origins into science classrooms as an alternative to evolution. The judge's opinion judged the Board members' actions by implicit standards of deliberative democratic discourse, which this article…

Almost 40 percent of all public school students in the District of Columbia (D.C. or District) were enrolled in charter schools in the 2010-11 school year. The D.C. School Reform Act established the Public Charter School Board (PCSB) for the purpose of authorizing and overseeing charter schools. Congress required GAO (US Government Accountability…

Community, higher education, and business partnerships are often touted as critical links to helping students graduate from high school and making sure that they are college- and career-ready when they do. Now a panel of state board of education members from across the country has found common ground for partnerships with the country's single…

This study examined the extent to which Texas school boards of education made efforts to locally modify student speech policy. Using online policy manuals provided by the Texas Association of School Boards, speech policies for 91 school districts were gathered using a purposive stratified sampling procedure and examined for local modifications to…

It has long been asserted that the English language is imperialist, however, the overwhelming effect it has on Education has long reaching consequences for people worldwide. That is to say, since English language teaching (ELT) is so fundamental for the financial and academic development of individuals on a global scale, it ought to be proposed…