The education system of the United States is not adequately preparing a large proportion of its students for college, career-training, and, ultimately, jobs that provide enough income to support a middle class standard of living. Because the education system has failed to attain hoped-for outcomes, some states are investigating new systems,…

The Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) provided states with newfound flexibility on accountability measures and school improvement strategies. Many policy experts have analyzed states' ESSA plans, which explain how states use their federal funds under various provisions of the new law, as well as the approaches states take to identify and rate…

Part I summarizes key topics of federal education policy articulating accountability requirements for state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs, or school districts). In that section we describe major goals of the legislation and which components are the same or changed in the federal law. The findings are grouped into…

This study examines potential consequences of the discrepancies between national and state performance standards for school funding in Kentucky and Maine. Applying the successful schools observation method and cost function analysis method to integrated data-sets that match schools' eight-grade mathematics test performance measures to district…

Maine is blessed with universities that have records of significant achievement. The seven campuses of the University of Maine System (UMS) together educated over 23,000 students (full-time equivalent) during the past year. But for good reason, in recent years public confidence in higher education throughout the nation has fallen. Half of the…

This document presents a summary of the report, "How Eight State Education Agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region Identify and Support Low-Performing Schools and Districts." This larger report describes and analyzes how eight state education agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New…

This report describes and analyzes how eight state education agencies in the Northeast and Islands Region (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, and Vermont) identify and support low-performing schools and districts under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Data collection for the report…

This short paper is part of a collection of 54 papers from the 48th annual conference of the Education Law Association held in November 2002. It discusses educational voucher programs. It states that proponents of voucher programs, having scored a major victory in the U.S. Supreme Court with "Zelman v. Simmons-Harris" (2002), will…

This newsletter reports on the activities of Equipped for the Future (EFF), which is a National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) initiative that develops content standards to ensure that every adult can gain the knowledge and skills needed to fulfill real-world responsibilities as workers, parents, and citizens. A message from the NIFL…