College has become a risky proposition for students as well as taxpayers. Fewer than six in 10 students who start a degree will ever finish, which means that they won't see a return on the money they've spent to attend--and if they took out a loan from the federal government, they might be left with unaffordable debt. In the latter case, the…

The Inspector General Act of 1978 (Public Law 95-452), as amended, requires that the Inspector General report semiannually to the Congress on the activities of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) during the 6-month periods ending March 31 and September 30. This Semiannual Report presents the activities and accomplishments of the U.S. Department…

In a year that has upended higher education and created great uncertainty, it is more important than ever for students to understand which colleges payoff and how quickly. In April of 2020, Third Way released a report outlining the use of a Price-to-Earnings Premium (PEP) to evaluate the value of attending college and help students assess and…

The federal government has been heavily involved in education since the mid-1960s, intervening in everything from early childhood education to graduate schooling. This paper lays out the principles that should govern federal involvement in seven specific areas and briefly examines the effects of Washington's policies. The areas are elementary and…

This paper argues neoliberal programs of government in education are equipping parents for calculativeness. Regimes of testing and the publication of these results and other organizational data are contributing to a public economy of numbers that increasingly oblige citizens to calculate. Using the notions of calculative and market devices, this…

Unsurprisingly, schools, companies, and others that have amassed student information have been unable to adequately safeguard it. They simply cannot keep up with all the data they have collected and have routinely experienced data breaches. These breaches have compromised grades, student financial information, Social Security numbers, and even…

The federal government spends an estimated $273 million annually on financial literacy1 and education programs and activities across 23 federal agencies and entities. These programs are designed to educate Americans about a wide array of financial literacy and education topics. However, in 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a…

In this paper, we use the development of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) as an illustrative case to examine how national schooling reforms are assembled in Australia's federal system. Drawing upon an emerging body of research on "policy assemblage" within the fields of policy sociology, anthropology and critical…

Administrative data on employment and earnings, commonly referred to as wage data or wage records, can be used to assess the labor market outcomes of workforce, education, and other programs, providing policymakers, administrators, researchers, and the public with valuable information. However, there is no single readily accessible federal source…

In the United States, the prevailing high school mathematics course sequence begins with a year of Algebra I, followed by a year of geometry and a year of Algebra II. Educators and others have raised concerns about the extent to which this sequence, which prioritizes the mastery of algebra, is appropriate for the longer-term education and career…

In July 2014, the U.S. Department of Education announced a new round of experimental sites focusing on competency-based education. Capella University was selected to participate in three of the Department of Education's competency-based education (CBE) experiments and began by implementing the prior learning assessment experiment, which allows…

Frederick M. Hess and Max Eden bring together a cross-section of respected academics and journalists to examine key aspects of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The Chapters appear on the table of contents as follows: (1) From ESEA to NCLB: The Growth of the Federal Role and the Shift to Accountability (Patrick McGuinn); (2) From NCLB to…

Using data from two of the most recognized studies on the incarcerated population, the "U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults" and a comprehensive evaluation by the RAND Corporation for the Bureau of Justice Assistance, as well as insights from interviews with leading experts in the U.S. penal system and his own observations made over…

The National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) longitudinal student surveys have long been exceptionally useful for many purpose. Despite their many virtues, however, these surveys cannot be used to monitor trends at short time intervals, they do not allow for flexible changes to survey content, they cannot generally be used to infer policy…

The Chinese government has attached great importance to the development of e-learning since its emergence in the 1990s. As a consequence of the implementation of a series of policies, China has made significant achievements in the e-learning arena with respect to infrastructure construction, production of resources, academic education,…