This brief is intended to provide State Education Agency (SEA) and Local Education Agency (LEA) educators with a brief overview of key components of GraduateFIRST, a Georgia program targeting issues impacting school completion for students with disabilities. Georgia's GraduateFIRST program has redefined the state's approach to raising graduation…

The "Getting Down to Facts" (GDTF) studies released in March 2007 offered a clear diagnosis of the issues facing California's education system. Now, as California moves beyond the facts and begins the search for ways to improve the performance of California schools and students, the state faces a critical policy dilemma. On the one hand,…

Two years ago, the Center on Education Policy (CEP), an independent nonprofit organization known for its comprehensive studies of No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and related issues, began a research-based review of the federal role. As part of this process, the authors examined an extensive body of research from a wide range of sources. They also…

In recent years, policy makers and educators in the U.S. have begun to show considerable interest in the concept of weighted student funding as a means of financing primary and secondary schools. Weighted student funding (WSF) has three main elements. Money follows students on a per student basis to the schools they attend, the per student amount…

This study examines from a geographical perspective the factors that impact the performance of public elementary schools in New York City during 2001-2005, a period when its schools were undergoing major reforms at both the local and national level. Education reforms have focused their attention on schools by increasing their responsibility and…

In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is an international comparative learning assessment measuring young people's knowledge and skills, Finland has been ranked at the top in the two rounds conducted and reported so far. In this article, the authors examine the discourses within which Finland's PISA results have been…

The inadequacy of present-day public school financial and performance reporting restricts policymakers. With existing spending and activity information now generally available, public officials can determine only overall education resource levels and make allocative decisions only among gross input categories such as relative amounts of labor and…

In this paper, a companion piece to "Strategic Designs: Lessons from Leading Edge Small Urban High Schools" (ED544382), the authors analyze small high school spending in three urban districts--Baltimore City, Boston, and Chicago--to understand whether it is higher than in larger schools; if it is, why it is different; and the policy…

"Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators" is the authoritative source for accurate and relevant information on the state of education around the world. It provides data on the structure, finances, and performance of education systems in more than 40 countries, including OECD members and G20 partners. Featuring more than 100 charts, 200…

Reforms in American public education have not resolved the wide academic performance gap between students attending schools in poor, large, urban centers versus schools in wealthier areas. Aggregate performance outcomes on state achievement tests reveal that some school districts consistently outperform others, a few fluctuate over time but are…

In the UK, education is the third largest area of government spending (of which school spending has the largest share). Since 2000, school expenditure has increased by about 40 per cent in real terms for both primary and secondary schools (see Figure 1). The question as to whether such investment is worthwhile is of central importance. The…

Austin Independent School District allocated federal NCLB Title I, Part A funds to 68 school-wide campuses (52 elementary, 11 middle, and 5 high schools) where the percentages of low-income children ranged from 45% to 99%. Other funds were allocated to provide services district wide to students, staff, and families. This report summarizes Title I…

Presents empirical evidence on input and output equity of expenditures, teacher resources, and performance across 840 elementary and middle schools in New York City. Finds that horizontal equity distributions are more disparate than what would be expected relative to results of other studies, vertical equity is lacking, and equality of opportunity…

Shows that commonly used "value-added" models are misspecified when estimated using the National Education Longitudinal Study, a finding that raises questions about whether previous value-added studied are unbiased. Also reviews more recent literature using instrumental variables methods to address omitted variables bias. (SLD)

There are still 10 English local educational authorities (LEAs) that are wholly selective and a further 10 with some grammar and secondary modern schools. This article examines the academic performance of pupils in secondary modern schools and the funding of these schools using national data sets matching pupils' performance at Key Stage 2 and…