In September 2015, Governor Charlie Baker announced his support for raising the charter school cap in Massachusetts. This announcement has sparked a heated debate about funding for public education that problematically ignores neoliberal ideology. The "Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993" began a reign of neoliberalism impacting…

This topic paper details how dual and concurrent enrollment programs can help states overcome workforce readiness and postsecondary access and completion challenges and how governors can strengthen these programs by using their bully pulpit, agenda setting authority and budgetary authority to do so. It concludes with a number of examples of how…

American public higher education is in trouble. Besieged by declining state and Federal support for more than 30 years, public colleges and universities are facing a "game-changing" set of challenges that threaten to alter the very nature of the institutions. As two recessions withered state budgets in the first decade of the 21st…

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…

To give states the information they need to sustain hard-fought education reform effectively, Achieve conducted research on state education reforms that have been sustained successfully for over a decade or more. Funded by the GE Foundation, Achieve hopes this work will help other state leaders, wherever they may be on their road to reform,…

This fourth edition of the "ES Review" brings together, in one setting, some of the best work from 2009-10. It features: (1) Teacher Quality (Teachers at Work: Improving Teacher Quality Through School Design (Elena Silva); Understanding Teachers Contracts (Andrew J. Rotherham); How Teachers Unions Lost the Media (Richard Whitmire and…

This Massachusetts Senate committee study examined public endowment fund development at public institutions of higher education in the state in comparison with institutional development at institutions in other states. The study used data from the Massachusetts Attorney General's Division of Public Charities, from colleges and universities, from…

The educational funding system in Massachusetts has become less equitable than before, since the passage of Proposition Two and a Half. A decision-making process driven by zero-sum economics, rather than educational needs, is particularly harmful to urban youth; failure to educate every young American threatens the nation's social and economic…

The primary sources of capital funds in Minnesota are the local capital expenditure levy and school district bond sales. The state provides assistance to low-wealth districts by providing a capital expenditure equalization aid program and two types of loans under the Maximum Effort School Aid Law. It has been argued that the concepts of equal…

Reviews precedents, at the state level, to the movement for education reform. Reports, by year and state, on first reactions to reform. Outlines topics touched by state reform efforts, summarizes unifying themes, and predicts the future of reform. Includes a table of states requiring testing for initial certification of teachers. (IW)

In recent years, federal mandates in education have become the subject of increasing debate. Adam R. Nelson's "The Elusive Ideal"--a postwar history of federal involvement in the Boston public schools--provides lessons from the past that shed light on the continuing struggles of urban public schools today. This far-reaching analysis…