Among the 50 states, 44 use free and reduced-price lunch enrollment to identify low-income students. These data are also commonly used to allocate federal, state, and local funding to schools serving low-income children. School and district poverty rates, as determined by free and reduced-price lunch enrollment, additionally feature prominently in…

The federal government currently provides more than $150 billion each year to students and their families in the form of grants, loans, work-study funds, and tax credits to help make college more affordable. This sizable public investment in higher education has indeed made college attendance possible for a larger share of Americans. However,…

After decades of slow growth, the share of young Americans completing college has increased to 48 percent in 2019, from 39 percent 10 years earlier. What accounts for the rise? Are more students clearing a meaningful bar for graduation, or are colleges and universities engaging in credential inflation and lowering their academic standards? This…

Completing a college degree, or failing to, is a major factor in determining whether a person will have an economically stable future. While it might have been possible a few decades ago to graduate from high school, enter the job market, and find a career that enabled one to earn a solid middle-class life, that path to success has been almost…

With the cost of college soaring and the national six-year completion rate below 60 percent, the federal government's support for higher education faces heightened scrutiny. What kind of regulation and accountability should Congress impose on Washington's hefty funding of Pell grants and subsidized loans? As legislators turn their attention to…

For 14 years, the "Education Next" annual survey has tracked American opinion on education policy. This year's survey, administered in May 2020, provides an early look at how the experiences of the past few months as the COVID-19 pandemic closed schools nationwide may shape Americans' views on education policy going forward. The survey's…

Kevin Carey, vice president for education policy and knowledge management at New America, notes that lawmakers charged with writing a new Higher Education Act (HEA) face a dilemma. Innovation in the higher-ed marketplace is badly needed to improve student learning and break the relentless cycle of increasing cost that puts college out of reach for…

With the 2020 presidential election campaign now underway, education-policy proposals previously at the edge of the political debate are entering the mainstream. Support for increasing teacher pay is higher now than at any point since 2008, and a majority of the public favors more federal funding for local schools. Free college commands the…

Should charter schools be required to enroll students labeled special needs at the same rate as local school districts, that is, educate their "fair share"? Or is it reasonable for a charter school to counsel special education students to go elsewhere, if another school would be a better fit? If "fair share" requirements are…

The year 2016 marks the 10th anniversary of the "Education Next" poll on K-12 education policy, offering "Education Next" the opportunity to take a retrospective look at public opinion on this vital topic. In 8 of the past 10 years, "Education Next" has also surveyed teachers on the subject and has seen some…

The Coleman report, "Equality of Educational Opportunity," is the fountainhead for those committed to evidence-based education policy. Remarkably, this 737-page tome, prepared 50 years ago by seven authors under the leadership of James S. Coleman, still gets a steady 600 Google Scholar citations per year. But since its publication, views…

Overall, one in four rural children live in poverty, and of the 50 U.S. counties with the highest child-poverty rates, 48 are rural. Drug usage abounds. In the mid-2000s, rural 8th graders were 59 percent more likely than peers in large cities to use methamphetamines and 104 percent more likely to use any amphetamine, according to the National…

State policy is crucial to the spread of digital-learning opportunities at the elementary and secondary level. A review of recent legislative action reveals policies that are constantly in flux and differ quite markedly from one state to another. Some have hoped for model digital-learning legislation that could handle all the various issues…

When former U.S. congressman and Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel marched triumphantly into the Chicago mayor's office in 2011, he promised to revamp Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in ways that had barely been contemplated in 16 years of mayoral control over the city's sprawling public-school system. This article discusses and…

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's long and deep immersion in Ohio education policy, particularly in the charter-school realm, includes a half decade of direct experience as "authorizer" of several charters. Initially, the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) was chief authorizer of charter schools in the Buckeye State. After the state…