The Obama administration has offered states the chance to waive some requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. States are required, however, to make specific reforms in exchange for increased flexibility. The administration has been clear it wants states to engage in "ambitious but achievable" reforms rather than merely asking for a pass from…

Librarians and scholars who seek to counter the rampant commercialism and consolidation that endanger equal and affordable access to knowledge can learn from the recent successful effort to pass health-care reform. Organizations with a commanding presence in an industry naturally seek to institutionalize their indispensability. They finance…

America is on the precipice of ruining its foundation for success. The movement toward a centralized education system through federal mandates and common curriculum and testing is threatening the very system that has contributed to America's success and that holds the potential for its future success: that is a decentralized, diverse, largely…

Given the tremendous impact teachers have on learning--they are the single most important school-based determinant of student achievement--the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) believes that no education improvement strategy states and districts take on is likely to have a greater impact than one which seeks to maximize teacher and…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus package, appropriated $100 billion for education and included $3 billion for school improvement grants (SIGs) to help reform low-performing schools. This amount was in addition to the $546 million provided by the regular fiscal year 2009 appropriations bill for…

With the Presidential election two months away, this paper presents a set of actions the Association of American Universities (AAU) believes the President and his Administration can take to advance the partnership between the federal government and research universities--as well as actions that universities themselves need to take to ensure that…

The Obama Administration has signaled that it will include a $1.35 billion expansion of the "Race to the Top" (RTTT) fund in its FY 2011 budget. This is in addition to the $4.35 billion for RTTT included in last year's stimulus bill. Under the Department of Education's (DOE) guidelines for RTTT, states must meet certain requirements to…

Over the next three years, states will dedicate an unprecedented amount of federal funding to school improvement efforts at approximately 5,000 of the nation's lowest achieving schools. The $100 billion for education appropriated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus package, included an…

The School Improvement Grants (SIG) program, which was created in 2002, funds reforms in the country's lowest-performing schools with the goal of improving student outcomes, such as standardized test scores and graduation rates. Congress greatly increased SIG program funding from $125 million available in fiscal year 2007--the first year the…

The content standards reform movement and the accountability movement that have occurred over the past 10 to 20 years have received much attention among educational professionals and the general public. The federal government legislated accountability measures with the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2000. The Pennsylvania…

President Obama has committed himself to "reform America's public schools," and his administration is focused on making early childhood programs, common standards, charter schools and teachers more effective. However, writes Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, the administration should also undertake actions to better integrate…

As the U.S. Department of Education prepares to throw $3 billion in one-time money on the table to improve perennially foundering schools, a gulf is emerging between what federal officials would like to see done with the funds and what many districts say is their capacity--and inclination--to deliver. While some districts say the federal largess…

Several states had an assessment that they considered to be an alternate assessment based on modified academic achievement standards (AA-MAS) in place, or in development, when the April 2007 federal regulations on modified achievement standards were finalized. This article uses publicly available information collected by the National Center on…

The Data Quality Campaign (DQC) submits these comments in response to the US Department of Education's (ED) draft requirements, priorities, selection criteria, and definitions for the Race to the Top District (RTT-D) competition. DQC applauds ED for including the following components of the proposal: (1) Data is acknowledged throughout the…

Currently, the federal government administers several programs that aim to address the "unique educational and culturally related academic needs" (Title VII, Part A, Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 2002) of Native American students. What does this mean for today's teachers and learners? Unfortunately, the drive to significantly raise…