A wealth of new research and political developments around the country support the position that pre-K must be accessible to all children at age three as a core part of their right to a free public education. This brief offers the case for establishing a right to universal pre-K in three parts: (1) The rationale: A review of the evidence showing…

Michigan's public education system remains in a perennial rut, as it has for decades. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Michigan's fourth grade reading scores show no significant change over the past 16 years. Even before the pandemic, too many dreams have stalled, and academic achievement remains largely…

Gains in school spending helped to lift achievement over the past half century. But California's ambitious effort--progressively distributing $23 billion in yearly funding to poorer districts--has yet to reduce disparities in learning. We theorize how administrators in districts and schools, given organizational habits and labor constraints, may…

A child's early years play a significant role in determining their chances later on in life, including their chances of social mobility. But the poorest children are already 11 months behind their peers when they start at primary school, with efforts to close the gap stalling, and evidence that the gap has started to widen once again in recent…

The most recent version of the Build Back Better (BBB) Act includes historic investments in child care and preschool totaling $390 billion. These investments create a child care entitlement for most children from birth through age five and universal pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds, which would provide significant increases to access…

Expanded public subsidies for child care and prekindergarten command solid bipartisan support. According to recent polling, two-thirds of Republicans and nearly nine out of 10 Democrats would like to see Congress increase federal investment in early education. At the state level, public investment and student enrollment in prekindergarten…

The prevalence and emergence of college promise programs presents interesting and important methodological challenges. Based on their immediate access to de-identified data of applicants and enrollees, institutional researchers are in a privileged position to rigorously assess the effect of these programs in a myriad of outcomes. This study is a…

Costs for transporting public school students have risen 33% from 2008 to 2018, reaching, on average, $1,152 per student transported. The reasons behind this shift include higher labor costs, various forms of school choice requiring longer commutes from students' neighborhoods, and environmentally friendly upgrades to bus fleets. As a result, some…

The primary concerns of the study reported on were to establish the challenges primary school teachers encounter in implementing the new curriculum in Bulawayo Metropolitan Province (BMP), Zimbabwe as remedies are sought. The paradigm underpinning the study was interpretivism, utilising a qualitative design. The public schools -- in both low and…

For the past several decades, private schools have steadily served about one in ten students in the United States. However, the student population enrolled in private schools has changed. Thousands of Catholic schools, which often serve less affluent urban communities, have closed; meanwhile, tuition increases in independent schools have outpaced…

Literacy and access to quality literacy instruction and resources is an issue of equity and an issue of social justice. Being literate represents the difference between inclusion in and exclusion from society. Examining how literacy experiences are being provided to children is critical to fulfilling this basic human right. This guide--written…

To provide effective rural leadership and ensure students with intellectual disabilities are receiving an appropriate education, principals must understand the substantial needs of these students. Eight principals of remote rural school districts, with at least one year of leadership experience participated in this phenomenological study. Based on…

Self-selection refers to the decision of qualified students to not pursue their highest possible educational degree, including higher education. In this systematic meta-review, we used the conceptual framework of college choice to identify resources or mechanisms for students' self-selection from higher education in international reviews and…

In 2019, the Washington Student Achievement Council adopted a Strategic Framework to better understand how state higher education policy contributes to campus and student success. The framework organizes the policy work into four areas deemed essential to achieve the 70 percent goal: (1) Affordability; (2) Enrollment; (3) Completion; and (4)…

This document includes the "FY 2022 Annual Performance Report" and "FY 2024 Annual Performance Plan." The "FY 2022 Annual Performance Report" provides narrative and data on the US Department of Education's progress toward the strategic goals and objectives outlined in its "Fiscal Years 2022-2026 Strategic…